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AMERICAN
HERITAGE
Noah's
Ark
by
a
folk
artist,
about
1850
December
,
)5^
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Digitized
by
the
Internet Archive
in
2010
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HERITAGE
December
1959
•
Volume
AY,
Number
1
©
HJjft
^)^ \tii(i iiJii
Htiitiim-
I'lihlisliing
Co.. Iiu.
\ll i
i^lils n-^ciMtt utuUr Hci iif ;iiul
Fan-Aiiu-i
it:in
(ii)p> right
CiMui-iKiuns. Kcpiodiu
liitii
Jii
u luilc
oi in
pat
t
ul
.iii\
aitii
le
wilhoiil pcrmissioii
i>
piohibilrd.
I'.S.
top>iighi is
not
i
l.iinud
hit
(oloi
platts <iii
pages
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VMI'IRK
IRIST
COMPANY
OF
Nt\\ \OKK
Large
sums
of
money,
let
alone
fame, usually
elude the
artist in
life,
but he
can
dream.
This
case in
fjoini.
Barrels ol
Money, was
fjainted
about iSS^.
It is
unsigned.
Some
exfjerls
attribute it
In
'I'.
Dubreuil,
but
the
name
itself urns
in nil likeliliood
a
f)seudon\m
fur
a
more
famous
exfjert at
trompe
I'oeil,
a
wise
precaution since
the
Treasury
Department
used
to look
askance
at
any
reproduction
of
the
currency.
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AMERICAN
HERITAGE
The Aldircrzi/ic
of
History
PUIII.ISHFR
J:imcs
Parton
I
nnOKI \J
DIKII KIR
Joseph
J.
Thorndike,
Jr.
EDITOR
Bruce C.auon
\l
\N
\(.IM.
I
111 IO[t
Olixcr
Jensen
liXEcunvu
r,i)noR
Eric Larrabce
Assncmr i
in tors
Rifharcl
M.
Ketclium
Joan
I'alerson Mills
ASMSTW
I 1
111 KIH
R()l)irt
L.
Reynolds
1
111
KlKl
\I.
\SMSI WIS
Caroline
Backliind,
Helen
M.
Brown
Roheii Cowley,
Stephen
W.
Sears
';or\ rniidu
Beverly
Hill
assistant:
Naomi
S.
Weber
\ni
niKK
roK
Irwin
Ghisker
AssociAiF
ART
DiRFCTOR:
Murray
Belskv
SIM
I
piiotoirai'her:
Herbert Loebel
Al)\
ISOR^ llOXKll
Allan
\e\ ins.
Cliniiiiicin
Ray
A. lillliiigicni
l.cuiis
C:.
Jones
Car
Caniicr
Rkliaui
P. MtCormick
Allien
li.
Core)
Hairy
Sliaw
Newman
Clnislopliii
Caiitenilen
Ho\vai<l
H.
Peckham
Marshall
li.
Uavldson
.S.
K.
.Stevens
Anliin
M. .Schlesingcr.
,Sr.
1.1K<
I I.VTION
DIRri tOR
Richard
V.
Benson
Amikkw IIikiiu.i
is
piililislicd
every lud
iiKiiillis li\
.\iiKiic.m Ikiilage
I'lililishing
(in..
Inc.. -|-|i
1-iftli .\\eiuie.
New
^mk
17,
N.
\.
Single Cioples:
S2.(|-,
Subscriplions:
.S12.50
in
U.S.
it Canad.i
$13.^,0
elsewhere
All annnal lii(le\
<il
Amikiiw
Hirmm.i
is
>iil)lished cveM
leliiiiai\.
piitcti
al
.^i.iin.
\\MRiiA\
lliRii\(.i
is
alsii
indfstil
ill
rildils'
(.iiidi hi
I'liiodiiiil
l.il 11 iil
ui (
.
HERiTAta-;
will
ronsider
hnl
assinius
responsibility
for iiiisiilii
iied
iiiauiial.
I ille
regislered
I'.S.
I'auni Olliic.
eidiid
(lass
poslage
paid al New \n\\,
N.
\.
Spoiiiored
hv
.
hncriidu
Associdt'rjn
for
SuiU
Cif
Lucii/
History
Socirt)
of
American
Historians
CONTENTS
December
1959
Volume XI, Number
1
IHl'
PEPVS
OF
THE
OLD
DOMINION by
Mm.sluill
Fi^lnricl:
. .
4
rilK
BOODLING
BOSS
AND IMK
MUSIC.\L
M.\\()R
by IliiKc
Iilixicn
8
HIE
-.V.MERIC.KN
^VOODS.\l.\N•' by M,nsh,ill
li.
Davuhn,,
.
12
IIIE UAITT.E
lH.\r
WON
.\N E.MIMRE by li.
//. Liddcll Hurl
24
,\miri(:an
iiiRriA(;i:
hook
siLKcriox
1
HE FRON
r PORCH
CAMPAIGN
by
Mavgincl
Lc-cch
FHE
•DELICIOUS
LAND'
/;v
.1. /..
linwsr
...
(iiiK
ia.i7Aut.
m.ws
,\Mi ,\\ii,ui(,,\:
pari
v)
ivitli
11
jxiilfolio
of
jilioloi^ruftlis by UniiUry
Smilli
WHEN
C:ONGRESS
FRIED
lO
RL^LE by Millon
I.niiuisk
IIIE
S2I
.S^V INDLE
by
Xallinnicl lirriclilry
. . .
.
.MARK
FWAIN IN
HAR
IFORD:
FHE ll.\PP\
\ EARS
rilid'd
by
Henry
Darbci-
FO\S:
.\
I'AR.\1)E FRO.M
1
HE
AMERIC.\N
P.\S1
. .
.
.
S.\C:CO
VANZEIFI:
THE
UNFINISHED
1)EU.\
IE .
.
. .
RF\niNG.
WRllINC;.
.\N1)
IllS IOR^
/)y
ISnur
Cillon .
lOR klN(,
OR
CONGRESS
32
46
60
02
(). )
.SI
89
113
120
CiO\
ER:
Ihc
tale
ol
Noah
is one
ol
llie
;.;ie.il
Bible sloiies
that laseinates
cverv
generation;
inileed
Noahs
.\ik.
(oiiipleu- willi
.iiiiinals.
was
a iaxorile
nineleeiith-
(eiitnry
toy.
We
jdcture
one on pa,s^e
8i.
al the
bei^inniiiL;
ol
a ponloiio
ol toys
Ironi
the
past. Ihe
ark
on the co\er. painted in
oil
on
a
wood
panel
about
i8.-,o.
is hdiii
llie
\l)l)\
.\khicli
RiKkelellei
Folk An Colleuion
al
Williainsbint;.
\'ir-
^inia. and
is
attributed
to
Joseph
H.
Flidley
(i.S;j(i-i87l>).
a
tarpeiuer.
la\iderniist,
and
general
artisan
who
is
noted
lor
\
lews
ol
his
home
town
ol
Poestenkill. New
\'ork. H(uk
('.(n'fr:
Ihe
sniid\ but
stubby
side-wheel
lerryboat
/..
7'.
I'rall
is
thouglit
by
some
lo
ha\e
operated
long ago
at llaltimoic.
Ihe
p.iiniing
belongs
to
the
Shelburne
Museum,
Shelliuine.
\eiinont.
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.^•\
-w
^??;-
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He
(ould never resist
an old
hook,
a
\oimi;
^iil,
or
a
Iresh
idea.
He li\fd spleiulidly.
planned
e\tensi\cly.
and
was
perpetuallN
in
ileljt.
Bc-
lie\ing
perliaps.
like
Leonardo,
llial lulnie
i^enerations
woukl i)e
more willing
lo
know liini than was his own,
he
wrote
his delieiotis,
ilelailed
tliaiies
in
(ode. Only
now
that
tliey
have
been
translated,
anil
time
has
put
his
era in perspective, do
we
see
what
William I5\ rd of
Wcstover was:
one
of the
hall-do/en leading wiis
and
stylists of colonial
.\meri(a.
In
the
po|)idar
imagination,
to
be
an
Amei ii
.111 hero
means
lo
rise
Irom
rags
to ridies. William
lis rd
re-
\iised
the pattern,
as
lie did
so
man\
other
things:
born
to
\\ealth, he
never
seemetl able
to
hold on
to it.
His father,
William Byrd 1
(1653-1704),
was one
ol
the
most
powerfid
and
venerateil men of his generation.
Not
only
had
he
inherited
\aliiable land on
both
sides
of
the
James
River,
he lunl also
won
the
h.inil of
Mary
Horsmanden,
and
a
very dainty and wealthy hand it
was,
too.
Some
of
tlie
bold and
red
knight-err:mt blood
of
the
Elizabethans flowed
through
the veins
ol
Wil-
liam
Byrd
1.
He
had
the
same
knack
as
did
Captain
John
Smith
(in
whom that blood fairly bidjbled)
for
getting
in
and
out
of
sciapes.
For
example,
William
Byrd
1
joined
Nathaniel
Bacon
in subduing
the
Indi-
ans,
but
stopped
short
of joining the rebellion
against
(iovernor
\\'illiam Berkeley, withdrawing
in
time
to
save his
repntation
and his
neck. Later
on
he became
receiver-general
and
auditor of Virginia,
a
member of
the
Council
of State, and the colony's leading
aiithor-
ii\ on
Indiairs,
The
important
1685
treaty
with ihe
Iiocpiois bore his
signature.
Death cut
short
his
bril-
liant career
soon
after his
fiftieth birthday,
antl
sud-
denly thrust his son and namesake
into the
tenter
of
the
colonial
stage.
The boy,
who
had
spent much
of
his time
in
England getting an education and,
later,
as
an
agent
for
Virginia,
must
now reiinn
to
.\meiica
and assume
the
duties of
a
man.
No one tan
read
the story of yoiuig
Will
liyrd's early
years,
and
bis
iranslormalion, withoul
thinking
of
Will
Shakcs])eare's Prince Hal. II ever
a
young
Virgin-
ian
beha\'etl
scandalously in
London,
it was Will
Byrd.
Never did
ihc
sun shine upon
a
Swain
who
had more
tombusiible
matter in
his
tonsi iiution, HyrtI
wrote
of
himself.
Low
broke out upon
him before
my beard.
Louis Wi
ighl,
to
whose
ediliiig
ol l>\rd's
diaries we are
indebted lor
nuich of
oin
knowieilge
of
the
man. says
that he
was
notoriously
promiscuous,
freijuenting
the
MMRiOll
His
secret diaries sparkle
with
the
wit,
u^isdom,
and lusty candor that
made
William
B^rd II
of
Westo\Tr one of
rill'
JH>\h(iit
oj
H\iil
ojijxiMlr ii'iis
l>iiiiilirl
h\ Sn
Coilficy
KiicUrr
in
IjiiiiUiii.
ji]<>hnhl\ hi-lwrrii
iji=, anil
1-20.
Ihc
liiinihi>inc ]'i\i^ini(in
inn
in lii.', riiil\
foi
liiw
—
llir
j>niiic
itj
lif/'—iinil
looked
I'l'i'iy inch llic
.sn/ihi.slii
iilfd ini.slocral
. even
lo
Ihc
iitsniiling
wig
then
jii\hioiuihlc
in iipjycr-cluss
.sociely.
Virginia's
most
cii<i;a<j;in<j^
jrentlemen
By
MARSHALL
IISIIWICK
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boudoirs
ol
higlibom ;iiul
lowborn abke. Indeed,
as
his diaiv sho\\s,
he
was not abo\e
taking
to
the grass
with a
fille
dc
joic nhoni
he
might
eiuoiniter on
a
London street.
Once, ivhen
lie arrived ioi a
rencle/xoiis
witli
a
cer-
tain
Mrs. .\-l-n,
the lady
wasn't
home,
so he
seduced
the
chambermaid.
Jirst
as
lie
was coming
down the
steps
Mrs.
A-l-n
came
in
the
front lioor. Then
Will
Byrd and
.Mrs.
A-l-n
avciu back up
the
stairs
together.
Several
hours
later,
he
went
home
and
ate
a plinii
cake.
On his
favorites
he
lavished neoclassic
pseudonyms
and
some
oi
the era's
most sparkling prose.
One
such
lady (called
Facetia and believed
to
have been Laily
Elizabeth
Clromwell)
vvas
his
preocciipaiion
timing
1703.
'When she lelt
him to
visit
Iriends in
Irelantl,
A\'ill
Byrd
let
her know
she
;\oidd be
missed:
The
instant Nour
coach
drove away,
madam,
my
iieart felt
as
if it had
been lorn up
by
the very
roots,
and
tlie rest
of
my body as if
severed limb
hoiii
limb. . . .
Could
I at that
time
have
considered that the oiih pleasure I hat in the
world
was
leaving
me.
I
had
hung
upon
your
coach
and had
been
torn
in
pieces sooner than
lia\e
sullered
myself to be
taken from you.
Having
said
all the proper things, he moved
on to
relate,
in
a later
letter, some
ol
the
jincier
bits oi Lon-
don
gossip.
Mrs.
Brownlow liatl hnalh agieed 10 marr\
Lord
Guilford—
and
the
gods
alone can
tell
what
will
be
produced
by
the conjtmciion
of
such iat
ami
good
humour
The
image
is
Falstalhan. as
weie
inan\
of
Byrd's friends. But
with news
ol
his lather's
death
he
must, like
Piince Hal,
scorn
his
ilissoltite friends and
assume
new
duties.
With
both
Hal
and
Will
the
meta-
morphosis was dilluiilt ami
paiiial.
btu nonetheless
memorable.
The
\'irginia to
whidi
in
1705
^\'illiam
B)rd II
re-
turned—the
oldest jjermanent English
settlement
in the
New
World
ami the lll^t
link in
the
chain th.it
^vould
one
day
be
known
as the British
Emjjire—was
a
combination
of elegance and cruditv,
enlightenment
and
superstition.
While
some ol
his
X'irginia
neighbors
discusseil
the
most advanced political
theories
of
Eu-
rope,
others argued
about
how
to
dispose
of
a
witch
who
was
said
to
have
crosseil
o\ei
to
(airrituck
.Sound
in an eggshell.
In
1701).
the
same
year
that
Byrd was
settling tlovvn
in
X'irginia after
his
long
stay
in Eng-
land,
a
X'irginia
comt
was
instructing
as many An-
sieiit anil Knowing women
as
jiossible
... to
search
her
Carefully For teats
spotts
ami marks
abotit
her
body.
\\'hen tertain luysieiious marks
were
indeeil
fotnul,
the
obvious contlusion was drawn,
and the
poor
woman
languished
in
\e
(onunon gaol.
Finalh
re-
leased, she lived
to
be
eightx
and tlieil
a
natmal death.
Other
\'irginia
lailies
lacetl
problems (iiuhiding,
o
occasions,
\\ \\\
B\rd)
that
were
far
older
than
the
col
ony or
the
witch
scare.
.\
good example was
Marth
Btirwell,
a
^\illiamsbtIrg
belle, who
rejected the
stiit
o
Sir
Francis
Nicholson,
the
governor,
so
she
migh
marr)
a
man more to her
liking.
If she did
so.
swor
the
enrageil Nicholson,
he
would
cut the throat
of
th
briilegriiom,
the clergyman,
and
the issuing
justice
Unavvare that females
are
membeis
of the weaker
sex
Martha
refused
to
give
in—
eveit
when
Nicholson thre
in
half
a
ilo/en
more
throats,
including
those
of
he
fathei
and
bioihers.
She married her
true
love.
No
throats
were cut—
but
visitors
to
the Governor's
palac
in
Williamsburg
observed that His
Excellency
mad
a Roaring
Noise.
In
those days
Titlewater
Virginia was
governed
b
a system of
benevolent paternalism.
The aristocrat
intermarried,
and
the
essential
jobs—
sheriff, vestryman
justice
ol
the
peace, colonel ol
militia—stayed
in th
laniily.
The support
of
the
gentry was the
prerequisit
to
social and political
advancement.
Wealth,
status
and privilege
were
the
Tidewater trinity,
and
it
was
case of three
in
one: wealth
guaranteed status;
statu
conveyed privilege; and privilege insured
wealth.
Will
Byrd
both understood
and
mastered
the worl
to which
he had
returned.
He retained
the
seat in
th
House
of
Bingesses
which
he
hail won
before
going
t
England,
anil
turneil
his
attention
to
finding
a
suit
able wile. Like
many of
his contemporaries,
he
con
fineil
romantii
love
to
extractirriiular
affairs, an
called on common sense
to
help him
in
matrimony
Both Washington
and
|efleison
married rich widows
Ambitiotrs
yotnig
men
lounil
iluv
coidd
love
a
rich
gir
more
than
a
poor one,
and
the
colonial
newspapers re
jjoited
their
mairiages
^vith
an
honesty
that boiilerei
on
improprietv.
One
reails.
for
example,
that
twenty
three-year-okl William Carter married .Madam Sara
I'^llson,
wiilcjw
of
eighty-live,
a
sprigluh
olil Tit, wit
three
thousand
poinuls fortune.
Will
Bvril's choice
was the
eligible
bm
fiei
v
Lucy
P;nke.
ilaughter
of
the
gallant rake
Daniel
Paike, who
had
fought with .Mailboi
imgh
on
the
Continent
ani
brought
the
news of Blenheim
to
()ueen .^nne. Many
a
stibseijtient
battle
Avas
louglu
between
Lucy Parke
and William
Bvrd
alter
their
niariiage
in
i7o().
though
neither side
was entirely
\anijuished.
Byrd was
cjuic
to
record
his \
ictories. such
as the one
noteil in
hi
tliary
for
Febrtiaix
3,
1711:
.Mv
wife anil
1 quaiiellei
about
hei
jjidling
her
brows. She
threatened she
would
not go to
\\'illiamsbtng
if
she might
not
pidl
them;
relused.
however,
and
goi
the
beltei
of her
;nid nutin
tained my
authoiity.
That
.Mrs.
Bvrd
had
as
main
good
exciises hjr her
Ills
ol
teinj)ei
and
violence as any
other
lady
in
\'ir
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giiiia
seems
plain—
not
unh Irnm lui ate
iisalions.
but
from
liei
luisbanil's
admissions.
I' ioin his
diaix I'liiiy
ol
November
u,
i7<><).
loi
example,
we
get this graphic
picture
ol
lile
among
the
planters:
111 tin-
evriiiii'.;
I
went
Ici
l)i.
[liarrelt'sl.
where
nn wile
(aiiie
this
.iliernooir I lire I
loimil
Mrs.
Chiswtil,
in\ sister
(llistis. autl
other
ladies. We
s.it
.nid talked till
alxiiit
i i
o'clock
and
then
retired
to oin
(h.nnheis.
I
pl.ivetl
.it
|i m]
with
Mrs. C:hiswcll and
kissed
her
on
the Jjcd
till
she
^^•as
ans^ry
and
my
\vife
also
was
inieasv
about
it.
and
tried
as
soon
as
lln'
loinpanv
w.is '.;one. 1 nei;leited
to
sa\ ni\ |)ra\ers
which I
should
not
ha\e done, because
I
ought
to
bej; par-
don
for
the
Inst
I
had
lor
another
man's wile.
Howe\er
1
had
good
health,
good
ihounlus.
and i;iiod
lunnoi.
ili.uiks
be
to
God
.Alnii^hty.
As
we
lead
on, we begin
to
leaii/e that
\\e
aie
con-
fronting
a Renaissance man in
colonial
America—
wiilei
with
the
liankness
ol
.Montaigne
and the
zest
ol Rabelais.
Philosopher,
lingtiist,
doctor,
scientist,
sixlist.
planter,
clitiichman.
William
Byiil II
saw
and
ie])oitecl
as miidi
as any Ameiican \\ho
died
before
otii
Re\()ltition.
Here
was
a
man
who,
biiiilened
lor
most of
his
life
with the responsibility
ol
thousands
of
acies and
hiin-
dieds
ol sla\es, never
became
naiiow
oi
piovincial.
.\either
his
mind,
nor
his tongue, nor
his pen—
the last
possibly
because he wiote
the
diaries
in
code—
was
re-
stiaineil
by
his c
in
timstances,
ami
no
one
at
home
or
.ibioatl was
innntme
fiom
the barbs ol
his
wit. W'lien
we
read liyrd,
\\e
know
just what
Dean Swift meant
\\hen
he
saiti:
'We
call
a
spade
a
spade.
One
ol Hxrd's
most
remarkable
achievements,
and
one
not neatly
\vell
enotigh
kntjwn
and
appieciated, is
his sketch
ol himsell,
attached to a
lettei
dated
Kebrti-
CONTISL'tD ON
i'.XGK
I
1
COURTESY Virginia
Cavalcade
H'o/oTrr. Hyrd's li(ni\r
nn
a
hliifl
nUovc
llir
](niirs.
was
roiii
l>lflril
nhoiif
/7;5.
/.ihf <»ir
of
llif
jynlriitii If..
Iir
icro/c.
/
liiivr
my
floiks
mid
my
/iri(h. my
boiidmni
niiil
h(iii(l,C(iiiiiii
.
iiiiil
ct'crv
soil
i)l
limlf iiiiiijiii^\l
my
oifii
srn'diils,
\ii
lliiil I
Jive ill II liinil
of
iiidrjiciuUtu c
nl
rvriynnr
hiil l'in\i(\ctii
i'.
His
son
dissipdiiil the
rstiilf.
hiil
ii
restored Wfsloi'cr.
thow^li
no
loii'^cr
III
llif
liiiiiily.
lodny
Inn
iiiiiili
of
;/\
old
iliinm. I'yi-,'tilcl\
owned, il
is
occiisionnlly ojiened to
the
jiublie.
7/17/2019 American Heritage December
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In
Novciiibei,
njoi.
the little
tnwu
ol
Sonoma, Cali-
loriiia,
a
lc\v miles
north ol
San Francisco,
lay
dreaming
in
the
haze
of Indian
sinnmer. There
were
few
guests in
the
town
hotel,
and only
t^vo
were
strangers.
One
of them
was
a small man
with bright,
beady
eyes
above
a
huge
mustache;
he
looked like
Ben
Turpin
with his
eyes
uncrossed. The other Avas
big
and
broad-shouldered;
he
had
a
head
of
thick, curly black
hair
and a luxiniant
mustache and
Vandyke beard
that,
in
pictiues
of
him,
give
an
irrepressible
im])res-
sion
of
being
glued
on.
These
visitors
seemed
to
be instructor
and pupil.
They had a single document A\ith
them, a
copv of the
San
Francisco
city charter,
and
hour after hour the
little man
could be
heard through
the
thin
walls
of
the
hotel
room
explaining
its
proxisions
to the
big
one,
quizzing
him
on its contents, expostulating when
his
companion
got the
answers wrong or
didn't remember.
The people
of Sonoma promptly recognized
the
pair,
for
their faces
Avere
well
known
in
Calilornia.
Wlrat the
toivnsfolk
did not
realize
^vas
why
they
^\ere
there.
The
little
man
was Abraham Ruef, San Fran-
cisco's
corrupt
political boss who reaped
the profits
of
bribery and
corru]:)tion
with
unparalleled
sang-froid.
The
big
one
was
Eugene Schmitz.
lately
orchestra
leader
at San
Francisco's fashionaljle
Columbia
Thea-
ter,
^vhom
Rucf
had tinned into
a
political
figure
only
a
few
months earlier anil, almost
singlehandetlly.
had
had elected
mayor. No\v,
in the Sonoma
hiliea^^•a\
im-
mediately
after
the
election,
Ruef was trying
to
teach
his
henchman
the
rudiments ol
public administration.
For
.\brahain
Ruel's
\i\icl imagination
was
alreadx
looking
ahead
to
a dramatic luiiue.
Years later, from
his
cell
in San
Ouentin
Prison, he
recalled
those days
in
Sonoma
in his autobiography. The
Road
I
Trai'eled:
W'c
were
the only
strangers
in
the
little
village.
We had
IcU
our
whereabouts
unknown
except
to
our
immediate
fam-
ilies.
There,
in
undisturbed peace,
we talked and
planned
day
and
night. There in
the tranquil
Sonoma
hills
I
saw
visions of
political
power;
I
saw
the
Union
Labor
Party
[U)
which he
and
Schmitz
belonged]
a
spark
in
Calilornia
which
would
kindle
the
entire
nation and make
a Labor
Presi-
dent;
I
saw
the Union
Labor Party
a
throne for
Schmitz.
as
.Mayor,
as
Governor—
as
President
of the
United
States.
Be-
hind
tliat
tluone.
I
saw myself
its
power,
local,
state—
na-
tional
. . .
]
saw
myself
United
States
Senator.
To
understand
how Rtief
was
able
to
put his gro-
tesquely
unc]ualified
nominee into
the
mayor's chaii,
and how he
hinrself
could end
up
a few years
later
in a
prison
cell, it is
necessary
to glance
briefly
at San Fran-
cisco's earlier,
turbulent
history.
At
the
beginning of the
t^vcntieth
century,
the citv
could look
back
on
a solid
fifty years of
sin,
violence,
and
corruption.
It
had
beeir a drowsy .Nfexican
village
of
a
thousand
people when
it was taken
o\cr
bv the
Airicricans
in
i8}().
Only five
years later,
the
town
hav-
ing mushrooiried following
the discovery
of gold,
crimes of \ iolence Avere so common
;ind the
local gov-
ernment
so \cnal or
spineless—
or
both—
that the
citi-
zens
organized
the
famous
extralegal
vigilantes —
officially the X'igilance Ciommittee— to
restore order.
Their method ^\as
simple
and effective;
hanging,
after
The
BOOD
LING
BOSS
A
corrupt lawj^er
and
his
complaisant a
until
a
crusading
editor
toppled
their pl
By BRU
.Ibralidin
Jiucf,
brillianl
and
rxiildess,
held
the
reins
of
[lowcr
in
lurnof-
the-century
San
I-
ranri.sco.
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the briefest
extemporaneous trials,
some of
the
more
conspicuous
wrongdoers. The
next
few years
saw tlic
leading
newspaper editor
shot
clown
by
an
indignant
sidjsciiber;
a United States
senator killed
in a duel
with the
chief
justice
of
the
state supreme louii;
and
ho\vling
mobs burning
the houses of
the
Chinese,
who
were
believed
to
be
tmdercutting
Americans
in the
labor
market.
For the whole half century,
prostitution,
gambling, and
drunkenness
raged
through
the town;
its
Barbary
Coast
was infamous
for
the public
disjjlay
of
e\ery
sort of vice.
For
a
good
part
of that
time,
the venality of
most
municipal
officials
was duplicated in
the
capitol
at Sac-
ramento.
Tile state
was
controlled
])olitically—
and
to
some
extent economically—
by
the
big
coiporations,
esj)ecially
the
Southern
Pacific Railioad,
a
situation
dianiatically
and
accuratel)
described
by
Frank Xorris
in Tlif
Octopus.
Distributor
of
nione\
and fa\ors for
the
Soiuhern
Pacific
was its chief counsel,
William
F.
lierrin, who,
besides
dispensing more
serious
bribes,
saw
to it that
whenever
the legislature \\as
in
session,
a
\veekend round-trip
ticket
to
San
Francisco
Avas
dropped on the desk
of e\ery lawmaker
everv
Friday.
When
the
t^ventieth
century began, there was
little
e\iclence
that
\ery
man\ peojjle in
the
city
objcc ted to
this
stale
cjl affairs,
and much e\icleiue
thai
most oi
them at least tacith approved. They
would
lia\e
been
dumfounded
if they
had
been
tcjld
that
during the
next
decade
San
Francisco
would
be
torn
asunder
by
what
was
probably the
greatest
struggle in
American
history
to end
municipal
corruption.
The forerumier
of
that
struggle
was
a
savage
water-
front
strike
in the
summer
of ujoi tliat
lasted
about
t^\o months
and
kit
endiuing
scars.
It
was broken
with
the aid
ol
the municipal
authorities,
who
put
city
jjolicc
on
the drays
to
protect
nonstriking
drixers.
Since
the days
of
the
gold
rush, when
labor
was in
desperately
short sujjply
and
workers
were
able
to dic-
tate
their
own terms.
San Fiancisco
had
alwavs
f)een
a
strong union
town. With
their deleai on
the water
front,
the
shocked
and
embittered woi
kingiiieii
turned
to politics for revenge.
They
organized
the Union
Labor party
and
began
to
talk big
about
taking con-
trol
of
the
city. This
talk might easily have come
to
nothing
but for the
presence
of
Abraham
Ruef.
The little boss,
born
of
a |)ros])erous
Jewish
mercan-
tile family
in San
Francisco,
had
a hue mind
and great
personal
ambition.
[le went
through
the University
of
California
at
Berkeley, studying
classical
languages.
Graduaied subsecpiently from
San
Francisco's
Hastings
College
of
Law, he
began to
jjiactice and
immediately
went
into
politics
as
a
Republican.
He
Avas
successful
in both
careers
from
the first,
aided
by
his
native
shrewdness and his
unusual
abilities
as
a
writer
and
public
speaker.
In hjoi
he
was thirt\-se\en.
and for
more than ten years
had
already
had many
dubicnis
underworld
connections. He saw in
the new
L'nion
Labor party
an
opportunity
for
Irimself,
lor
power
—and money.
He
needed
a
Trilby
to
xvhom
he could
play
Svengali, and
he
soon
found one.
Like the orig-
inal
Trilby, his
came
from
the
world of
music.
Eugene
Schmit/,
the orcliestra
leader,
knew
nothing
the
MUSICAL
MAYOR
San Francisco
as
their
private
preserve
schemes,
and
sent
one
of
them
to jail
/>))
tinci- li'rnis
Enc^rrxr
Scliiiiilz.
II
foyiiier
htuid
lender, xciis
Ituff's
pvj)-
pet ns
the city's
mayor.
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BOTH
PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM THE UNIVERSITY
OF
CALIFORNIA,
BERKELEY
THE
HUNTERS:
(Lcfl
In righlj
Fniiicis
J.
Hrney.
the
jnos-
cculor; Detective W'illuiiii
/.
liiniis: Edilor
Inciiuiiil
Older:
Rudolph
Spreckels,
a
jnuouial
bniltry
of
the
prosriiilion.
()[
politics
and
tliil not
\vant to run, but Rucl assmetl
him
victory
was
practically
certain.
The
psychology
ol
the
mass of voters, said Riiel, is like that ol a
crowd of
small
b())s
or
primiti\e nren.
Other things
be-
ing
equal,
of
two candiilates
they
^vill
almost invari-
ably
follo^v the
strong,
fineh-biiilt
man.
Riief
proved
a good prophet.
The
Republican ami
Democratic op-
ponents
were weak,
and
e\er\
iniion
man
in
the
city
ivas
still
smarting from
the broken
strike; Schmit/
\\'as
elected.
After
a
iew
days
of
the
Sonoma
cranrmer's-coiirse in
the
art of government,
the
t\vo
men returned to San
Francisco, and
soon
thereafter Schmitz
formally
took
office.
Before
very
Icjng,
newspapermen and
other
knowledgeable
people
in the
city began to hear that
graft was on
the
inciea.se,
and that nearly
all
of
it was
channeling through
Riief. His
method
^vas admirably
micomplicated:
he
became attorney
for
any
individual
or
group
that
liad
bribes to offer;
the money
:\as
then
paid
to him as legal
fees, and
he
divided it
with
Schmitz and
with
anyone else ^\ho
was
entitled
to a
cut.
One
of
tlie
important
early
sources
of graft
under
this
system
was San Francisco's
famous
group
of
French
restaurants.
Although
owned
by
different
people,
these
operated
on
a
uniform
and
disreputable
system.
The
ground
floor
was
a
respectable
dining
room,
cater-
ing
to
the
family
trade
and serving
excellent
food
and
wine at
reasonable prices.
There
were
always, how-
ever,
several
higher
Hoors
with
private dining rooms
and
bedrooms, where
prostitiues
operated
bra/enly.
These
restainants had
to
ha\e
city
licenses, which
came
u]j for renewal
from
time to time,
and
before the
Schmitz
administration was
\erv old the oAvncrs
^\ere
told,
to their
dismay,
that
their
licenses were
to
be can-
celed.
They promptly
hired
Ruef
as
their
lawyer,
paid
him
many
thousands
of
dollars,
and
the
threat
of
troidjfe
faded a^vay.
Among
the dozens of houses
of
prcjstitiuion
which then
flourished openly
in
San
Fran-
cisco was
one on
Jackson
Street,
with seventy inmates,
in
which
Mayor
Schmitz was
generally
believed
to
have
a
heavy part-ownership.
This
was nicknamed
the
Municipal Crib
and
was
so
known throughout
the
city for
years.
Other
varieties of graft
developed
with
great
rapid-
ity.
The police
in Chinatown
were accused of collect-
ing regular
weekly imnuuiity
fees
from
gamblers. Vari-
ous
types
of
business
had to pay
Icjr
permission
to do
certain things,
some
of which
were
entirely
legal
and
unobjectionable.
With
the Republicans
and Democrats still divided,
and
with
the
workers
on
the whole still behind
the
I'nion
Labor
party, Schmitz
was re-elected
in
ic)o3
and
again in
1905.
He and l^uef had
consolidated
their
po\ver
and gained experience,
and in
icj()5,
h)r
the first
time, nearly
all eighteen members of
the Board
of
Supervisors
\\cre
their
henchmen.
Some
came
from
the
ranks
of
union
labor,
bin
others were
variegated
friends of I^uef, with
backgromids
as
did)ious as his
o^\•n.
Almcjst
at
once
it
developed that
most of them
had
heard that the
city was
full
of eas\
money,
and
they intended to
get
their
share;
soon
Ruef
was told
that incli\ic ual sujjervisors were
openly
asking
pay-
ment to
vote
in
accoidance ^\ith the
wishes
of
various
businessmen.
The boss sa^v
that
this
would
never
do;
with
a
ninn-
ber
of men seeking
bribes indi\icluallv,
open scandal
could
not
be
averted. Acccjrdingly,
he
called an
luiolfi-
cial
meeting
of
the
board
and
made
a
short speech.
His exact words
have been
lost
to history,
biu
of
the
substance
there is no
doubt. You
men owe
your jobs
tci
me,
he said in
effect, ^'ou will do
\vhat
I
say,
or
you
will be rejalaced. If
anybody
wants to make
a
gift
to
the
supervisors
in
return for their consideration of
liis
wishes and
needs, this money will
be
collected
and
disbursed by
me. You
are
not to kno'\v'
the
name of
the
donor:
you will
simply
vote as I
tell
you
in
all cases.
The
supervisors saw that they
^^ere licked, and
seventeen of
them
silently
acquiesced.
By some accident,
however,
one
honest
man
had got
on the
board: he
was
not
at
the
historic
meeting,
nor
did
he
participate
in
the
subsequent
distribution
of
graft. Let
his name
be
recorded
for history:
Louis A. Rea.
A
typical
example
of
how
the
Ruef
system
^vorked
was
the
fight between
t\\-o
competing
telephone
com-
panies. The
Pacific States
Telephone and
Telegraph
Company was
already
operating in
San
Francisco,
while
the Home
Telephone
Company w;miecl
to set
10
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up a
fonipctiiii'
svstem there,
as
it hail
done
in a num-
ber
ol
oilier ciiies.
Pacific States
hail
lor
some
time
been
paxins;
Riiel Si,
200
a
month as
attornev's lees.
lh)me
Telephone
no\\-
offered
him
a
Hat Si 25,()()().
(Riiefs
ciislom
was to
share
about
hall the
money
among the
seventeen
dishonest
supervisors,
ami
to
divide the
other
hall
between
himscll and
Sdimit/ in
varying
proportions,
olten
ecjualh.)
Pacific
States
no^\•
heard
what
was going
on
and
pro-
ceeded
to
approach
ele\en ol
the
supei \
isois direct-
Iv, giving each
ol
them
about
S5.o()o.
When he
learned
nl this,
Ruef
was
hirioiis;
he
told
the
supervisors
that
iliey
would
have
to
vote
for
the
Home
(;ompain
(which
a
majority
ditl),
ami
that they
should gi\e
back
at
least part
of
the
Pacific
Slates bribes.
The
distribu-
tion
of tlie Home
Compaii) money
is
interesting. .Ac-
cording to
^\'alton
Bean in his
aiithoi
itaii\e
book.
Boss
Rui'I's
S/iit
Francisco, Ruef kept
about
one
fourth
ol
the
,'>
25,000
and gave
another
loiirth
to
Schmit/.
The
rest
was distributed
among
the
supervisors
on
a
carefully
graduated
scale,
according
to
whether
or
not
they
had
accepteil
Pacific
States
bribes, and
whether
they
had
\oted
for or against
the Home
Company.
Rea,
the honest
super\isor. of
course
got
nothing. One
oilier man, Patrick
McClushin,
also
got
nothing; in
public
speeches he
had
committed
himself
so tlior-
onglily to
municipal
ownership that he
did
not
tlaie
vote
for either
corporation.
Many otlier
companies and indi\iiluals at
about
this
time
felt
it
necessary
to
indulge in
bribery, and
found
liiief a
willing recipient. The largest sum
he
recei\ed
was
§200,000
from the United
Railroails, which
ton-
trolled
the
city's
streetcars. There was
an
agitation in
San Francisco to have tire
overhead trolley
\vires put
into
underground conduits,
and
United
Railroads
paid
the bribe
to
block this
expensi\e project. Head of
the
United
Railroads was
Patrick Calhoun,
an
aggres-
sive,
able,
and
unscrupulous
financier, grandson
of
John
C.
Calhoun, former Vice
President
and
states'
riohts
leader. Patrick
Calhoun sent
his
chief
(ouuscl.
Tirey L.
Ford,
to
Ruef, who
passed on part
ol the
.$200,000
to Schmit/
and
the
seventeen
su])ervisors.
On
another
occasion
and
from
another
source
Ruef
was promised
a far
larger bribe. San
Francisco needed
a
su|jplenientary
supply of water
from the Sierra Ne-
vada, lar
across the
state to
tlie east, and
owners
ol
mountain
land near
Lake Tahoe
proposed to build
a
water system there
and sell
it
to the
city at
a
profit of
three
million
ilollars;
one
third
of this was to go to
Ruef,
who in
turn would
split
with
the
supervisors.
Before the plan
could
be
carried
out, however,
the
storm broke over the
members
of
the
graft ring.
The
storm was created
|)rimarily
by
one
iiuliv idnal.
Fremont
Okler,
who
in
iHijr,,
at the
age of iliirly-ninc,
had
become
managing
editor
o[ the
San
Francisco
IhiUctiii.
Okler,
generally
lonsidered
by journalists to
be one of the hall-do/en
top newspa|)er editors in
American history, was a huge man,
si.\
feet
two and
broad-shouldered,
with
Hashing
eyes above a
big
beak
of
a
nose, and
a
voice that rrjsc
to
a
roaring
bellow
when
he
was
excited
or
angeretl, which
was almost
continuously.
(1
was
a
part-time
cub
re]Jorter on the
Bulletin
tor
several
ycais
iluring
the
light
against the
graft
ring—
while
working my
way
through
Staiilonl
University
as a
caiii])us
correspondent—
and
I can
tes-
tify
to the
etpial
amoiinis
of terror,
admiration,
and
passionate
loyally that
Okler
inspired in
every
mem-
ber of his staff.)
Why
he
possessed
such a deep
and
burning
zeal
for
municipal
honesty
is
something that must be
left
to
the
psychiatrists,
ft was
shared
by
few
if
any
of the
top
executives
of the
other San
Francisco
newspapers,
and
certainly
not
by
Older's
boss,
R.
A.
Crothers,
])ari
owner
and
active manager of
the B\ilh'ti]}.
When
Older
came
into the olhce
the
paper was
moribund. It was
also, as
he
relates in
his
fasc
inating
autobiograpfiy.
My
Own Story,
on
the
payroll
ol
the
Soutliern Pacific
Rail-
road
for
S'-'5
a
month, the customary
stipend paid
at
that time
to all
weak
newspapers
and
many
strong
ones.
During all
the
years of
the
fantastic struggle
to
expose
the
grafters, the
Biillrlin played
a leading
part,
liut
CJotheis,
to
put
it mildh,
dragged
his feet.
This,
however,
did
not
e\eui|)t
him
Ironi the wrath
of the
graft
ring. .\t
one
siage in
the
battle
he
was
struck
clown
in
an
alley
behind
his
office, severely
beaten, and
left
for
dead.
Older, as
the
more
aggressive
fighter, ran
even
more
serious
risks.
When
in
1905
Schniitz
was
re-elected de-
spite
the
opposition
ol the
Biillrlin,
a
riotous
mob
gathered
in
front
of
the
newspaper,
smashed all
its
windows,
and
lollowed
Older
and his
wife,
hooting
and
jeering
at
iliem, as tliev
walked
clown
the street
i\
I
iM
1
iMi\
r
\(.i 11
THE
QU.\RR^:
./
-.corrird
/Jovv
liiipf
(center)
confers
u'illi
two
of
Ills
iitliinieys
iliiriiiii
liis
e\tnrlinu
triiil. lie u'lis
the
iiiily
fj^iiijlcr
\eli()
\nvc(l diiy
niii\iileriihlf
lime
in
prison.
11
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*Mf
^
MtStLM
OF
NAtOUUCi.
ffiSU
^l
John James
Audubon,
painted
toward
the
end
of
his
life
by his
sons, Victor
and
John.
In his
prime,
a
woman declared: Audubon
was
one
of
the handsomest
men
I
ever saw.
. . .
He
was
tall
and
slender,
his
blue
eyes
were an
eagle's in
brightness, his teeth were white and r~i'en. his hair
a beautiful
chestnut
brown. x>ery
glossy
and
curly.
His bearing
was
courteous
and
refined,
simple,
and
una.\suining.
T/i
le
MERICAN
Wc
OODSMAN
^s
the
frontier
Dioved ^icestu-drrl a?id
-a-ildlifc
declined,
the tireless
Auduho)i
drove
himself
to
I'ecord its
wonders
By
MARSHALL B. DA\
IDSOX
12
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Thanks
Id
llic
pluiuk't
iiii; ;i<^cius of
ihc mil-
liiiciy
ti:iclc,
oik-
oI
i1k- bcsi rambles
lor
a
biri
waiclier
in
ihc i88u's
was along
the
lashionaijie
sho|)|)in,g
strecis ot
downtown
New
Wnk Ciity.
On
two
suiccssivf
laic
alternooiis
in
i8<S()
one
sharp-cycil naturalist
sjiotted more
than
loi
ty
ditteicnt
species, iniliiding
such iinlikeh
specimens
as
a laughing
gull,
a
nified
grouse,
a
green heron,
and
a
sa\\-whei
owl,
all
in
the
crowded
precincts
ol
lower
Manhattan;
all dead,
to be sure,
and perched stillly
and
pioperly
as (ostiinie
accessories on
the
habits of
well-dressed
ladies of
the
nietiopolis. The
phinie
mer-
chants never
had such
spectacular
opportunities
as
they did in
the
Gilded
Age.
To
such ends
and others,
in the
past we
Americans
managed
to \vipe
out
astronomical
numbers ol
birds,
in
recent times,
ho\ve\er,
man and
biril li.i\e
achieved
a
tolerable
state
ol
coexistence
in our
[Ktrt
of
the
world.
C;oiiiury
lolk
may
continue
to worry about
the
nuisance
ol
hawks
and
crows,
and
city
dwellers
about
the
untidy
habits
of
pigeons
and
starlings.
But
we
ha\e
abandoned
the practice
of
massacring
songbirds
to
decorate
our
ladies'
hats.
\ot\\ithstanding
the
con-
llicting
interests ol
our
,\ir
Force, we
have
piovided
jjeacehil
sanctuary
for
the whooping
crane, and have
even
granted
ininiunity
to the
peregrine
falcons
that
occasionally
rocket
do\vn
from
the
heights
of
tall
buildings
lor
tasty bits of
the
more
domesticated birds
that,
in a
horseless
age,
still
feed
as before in the
city
streets.
On their
side,
the
birds—some
of them—
have ac-
commodated
iheir
habits to
the
strange
ways
of
man,
finding
new
homes
in chimneys
and
barns,
or
abandon-
ing their
ancestral
forest
habitat
h)r
life
among
the
commuters
in
oin
burgeoning
suburbs.
And every-
where,
for the
i)ast
lifty
years
or
so, the
watchful
eye
of
an
.\tidiibon
society
guards their
interests.
There
is
a measure
of
irony
in
the
fact that
if any
such
organization
had
existed
during
the
lifetime of
John
James
.\udubon,
we
might
never
have
heard
of
the
man,
much
less
celebrated
his
memory
as a
great
pioneer
nalinalisi.
In
the
course of
compiling
his
mammoth inventory
of
the
birds
of .America,
Audubon
must
ha\e
killed
a formidable
number of
specimens.
He once
boasted
that it was
a
poor
day's
hunting
\vhen
he
shot fewer
than
a
hundred.
Like
a
number
of
his
tales,
this
one
may
be taller
than
the actual truth. On
the
other hand,
his diary
candidly
reports
the
aniuse-
meiu
lie
occasionally
took
in firing
into
a
Hock
of
birils
to
test
his
excellent
marksmanship,
or
simply
pom
Ic
sport.
Once, on
December
25,
1810,
\vith
a
jjarty
of
Shawnee
Indians,
he caught
a
lakefid
of
swans
in
a
pitiless
cross
fire,
until
the surface
of
the water
was
covered with
birds
floating
with
their
backs
down-
wards,
and iheir
heads sunk
in the water,
and
their
legs
kicking
in
the air.
.\fter
eating
a meal of
pecan-
nut
and
beailat
soup,
while
the
stjuaws
worked into
I
he night,
.Audubon
went
to
sleep
before
the
campfire
veiy
well
satisfied
wiili
[his]
Chiistmas
sport.
\\'hi(h
is
no
stick
lo
beat .Audubon
with.
In
his
hey-
day
the
.Ameritan
wilderness
was
just
about
the
last
))lace in
the world
to
expect
the
jjievention
of
cruelty
to
\\\\d
(leaiures
or
the
preservation
of
any
living
thing
sa\e the
human interloper,
perhaps,
and
his
live-
stock.
The forests of
the
\ew
World
and
all
the
game
that
sought
their
cover
were
inexhaustible.
Yet
they
would have to
give way
to man
and his works.
There
would
be time
enough
to regret
the wasteful
plunder-
ing
that
went with
pioneering
when the
naiion
finally
spiead
out
over
and
.settled
down on
its
three billion
acres
of virgin
land.
Audubon
ne\er
did
become
a
conservationist
as
the word
is understood
these
days.
Even
as
he picked
olf
his
huge
toll
ol
feathered
specimens,
he
was aware
that
his
beloved
frontier
world
was
rapidly
vanishing
about
him.
He did
not
pretend to
say
whether
the
changes were
for
the
better
or for
the worse.
He only
knew with
passionate
conviction
that
no
one coming
after him
would
e\er
have
the same
opportunity
to
record
the biids
of
North
America
in their
primeval
haunts,
and
that
realization
drove
him mercilessly
to
finish
his
inventory
before
it
was
too
late.
He needed
all manner
of variants to
complete
his
studies,
and
from
the
beginning
he hired
hunters
w-hen
his
own
gun
for
some picssing
reason
was
idle.
In
later
yeais, when
he was obliged
to
remain
in
England
to
attend
to publication
matters,
he
wrote
his
naturalist
Iriend,
the Reverend
John
Bachman
of Charleston,
pleading
for more specimens:
Take
to your
gun
. .
.
go to
the \\'oods,
and go
to
the
shores,
or
if
you
cannot
at
all
send
some worthy
one on
whom
you
can and I
also
depend
... It will
save me one
year
of
Shooting
and
of
ransacking
the
Woods singly.
. .
.
Time
was
everything,
and
from
the
moment
he
started
in active
pursuit
ol
his
great
idea until the
waning
years
of
his life,
he
felt
he
never
had
a
moment
to lose.
1
am growing
old too
fast,
he complained
to
his
journal
one
evening
when
he was
in his late forties;
.
. .
may
(iod
grant
me
life
to
see the
last plate
of
my mammoth work finished.
.As
usual,
on this
tri|j he
had
been up
at three
in
the
morning
and
had
been at
his chawing for
seventeen hours
before
making
the
entry.
He had
been working
under the
main
hatch of
the schooner
he
had
hired to
take him
to the
bleak
coast ol
Laijrador
so
that he
coidd
witness the breed-
ing
habits
and see the
jjlumage of
the
waterfowl
that
summered
in
that
wonderful dreariness.
The chill
log
might collet
t
and la
II in
large diojjs
Irom the ship's
13
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rigging onto
his tlr;n\ing
table,
and occasionallx the
heavy
rain
would
oblige him
to
close
the skylight:
but
he
worked on.
in wet
clothes
and
in seniidarkness.
if
need
be.
If
there was daylight
left
when
he
finished
his
stint, he went
ashore for exercise.
This
single
episode is
tvpical
of
the
almost
maniacal
fixedness with
which,
once
the
vision came
to
him,
Audubon
drained
all his prodigious
energies into the
publication
of
The
Birds
of
America.
It
x\as
the
task,
as he
sa^\ it
with
almost
mystical
reverence,
allotted
him
by
nature,' and driven
by
that
obsession
he
reached
his main
goal
in about
twenty years' time. In
the
course of doing
so,
he
forced
his plodding
talent to
such
extreme, if
narrow, limits
that
it
took
on
the
aspect
of
genius.
But
to
label
Audubon
a
genius is to rob the
man
he
was
to pay
the
legend he
has
become.
His name
has
long since become a
household xvord, revered
b\
Boy
Scouts
everywhere
and
taken
by
conservationists
as
a
rallying cry for their
cause.
He
has been
critically
ac-
claimed
as
one
of
the
greatest
nature
artists
of
all
time.
He has been
cast
in
the image
of a
felk
hero,
somewhat
bigger than
life. But genius is
inexplicable, and
.\udu-
bon's accomplishment can be told in
terms
of
the
very
human,
^vorkaday uphill struggle
bv
x\hich
he
shaped
his own
destiny.
He
arrived in
America
in
1803,
an insouciant
youth,
somewhat
dandified
in a
continental
manner,
with
a
passion for dancing
and
an oft-beat conipidsion
to
ob-
serve and
draw
the
likenesses
of
birds.
This
bastard
son of
an
adventuring French
sea
captain
and one
of
his
Creole
mistiesses
had been
born
in San Domingo
in
1785.
His
father
had
taken
the
chikl
home
to
his
lax\-
ful
(and
iniderstanding) wife at just about
the
moment
thai
France binst
into the
flames
of
revolution.
There,
in gootl
time, he \\as
legally
adopted and properly
bapti/etl,
given
the name
of
Jean Jacques
Fougere
.Audubon.
(Or, if
you
prefer
a
long
outside chance,
he
was
the
lost
Dauphin, somehow spirited
out of captiv-
ity
into
the protecti\e
custody
of
the
Audubon
menage
in Xantes: although
the
Revue
Insturiqiie
dc
la
ques-
tion
Louis
A'
17/.
published
early
in
this centiny
to
penetrate
this
mystery,
does
not
list
him
among
the
many nominees
lor that
imhappy
distinction.)
^t
eighteen, the lad ^\as ripe
for
conscription
in Na-
jLx.
poleon's swarming
armies and,
apparentlv to
avoid
any such
interruption
of
his
career,
the
captain
dispatched
his son to the Xe^v A\'orld
estate near
Phila-
delphia that
he had
acquired
during his
residence
in
the
western hemisphere.
Thus yoiuig .\udubon fol-
lowed
in a long line of tlistingiiished
cmii^rcs,
includ-
ing Louis Philippe,
the
futme
Citizen King
of
France,
and his brothers: Talleyrand;
Brillat-Savarin;
.Moreau
de
Saint-Mery:
and
others
who
for
one
reason
or
another
sought
haven in the United States while
France
^\as in
turmoil.
But
inilike
so many
of
those
jaolitical
exiles, Audu-
bon
stayed
on
to
live out
his
years in
.\merica.
For
a
while
it seemed altogether
likely
that
he might
become
a moderately successful Xew ^Vorld
merchant,
as
his
father, between times,
had
briefly
been before
him.
A\ ithin
a
few years
he had
married
his
English-born
neighbor, Lucy
Bakewell,
and mo\ed
to Kentucky,
where,
in
spite
of the
constant
and commanding
tlis-
traction
of
his
interest in
birds,
in
time
he made
enough
money
by
trade
to
speculate
in
land
and
slaves,
and
bring himself to
lairlv
comfortable
circiun-
J.
E. SITED ART MUSEUM, LOUISVILLE
Before
begijunng The
Birds
of .\nierica.
Audubon
for
a
time
icas
an
ilineriint
portraitist, charging
Sy
a
jiicture.
Among
his
first
subjects,
sketched
in
chalk
in
iSitj, were
the
James
Bertliouds and
their son Nicholas,
right,
of
Louisville, Kentucky.
14
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MKS. C. E. \VI\TERS
AND
MISS
M
VTII l>\
TYI
LR;
<)\
lovN
TO AIUIBON MEMORIAL
MUSEfM, HENDERSON',
KENTUCKY
III
1S22
Auiliibon
mrl 11
jxnirailnl wlio
inshiulrd liiin in
l)ic
u\i-
of
ails:
llie iirxt
year
lie
jttiinlcd
lii\
si)n\.
l'irlni(lffl) and
Jiihii
f
right). The
liknicss
of
}iis
icifc.
Lucy,
icciilci)
uuis
bci^ini
iiuiiiy \rins lain hy nil iinidriilijird
nicnihi-y
of
ihc
family.
stances.
Liicv
had
her
])iano,
Audubon his
own various
nuisical instruments.
Tlu-re were
a
tollection
ol
books,
a
decent
complement
of siher,
china,
antl
other house-
h(jkl furnishings, antl
slaves
to
lighten
the
drudgery
in the house and
in
the
barnyard and
orcharil.
Cler-
tainly
.\be
Lincoln's
lather,
struggling
to provide
lor
his own
little
family
larther
east
in
the state,
^voiikl
ha\e considereil
this luxiny.
Had
Audubon
tontiniied to
prosper, his
name
would jjrobablv have
been
lost
among
the
coinitless
thoirsanils of immigrants who
foiintl
tlieir
lortinies in
the
^\'est.
But then,
in
the panic
vear
of
1819,
he
went
Hat broke and
bankrtipt.
Keleasetl
from
jail and
pressed
by
necessity,
he
iiuiied
portrait
artist, taking
profde
likenesses
of
his
friends
and
neighbors
for as
much
as
five tlollais
a
head initil the
local market
h)r
such
primitive exeicises
^\as
exhausted,
^\it l iheii t^vo
sons. Victor Gillonl
and
|()hii
WDotlhouse
.\udid)on,
he
and
Lucy mo\ed to
(ancinnati,
where
both parents
foinul hire as teat hers;
antl it
^\as
there,
in
Otiober,
1S20,
that
Aiiiltd)on Ijecame
possessctl.
Without
a
retl
cent
in
the potkets
ol his
worn brown
breeihes.
he
left
his
famih
to
lenil
lor
themsehes and
lollowed
the
migiating binls
down
the
Ohio
in a
llatboat.
A\'hat conipelleil the man.
mitlwax
in
life
anil
virtu-
all\
penniless,
to
innlerlake
stub
an
imjjossible
\cn-
ttne?
He
had
diawn
biids
all
his
lile,
to
be
sine. l>ut
he
cotikl not
yet
identif\ a cormorant, as
his
jotnnal
clearly
intlicates;
antl he
a])parentl\
hatl
not
\ei c\en
spoltetl
siuh
a
connnon
bird as
the
hermit
thrush.
I lis
understanding
of
ornithology
was nothing
but
itidi-
meniarv;
he was igntirant of most of
the
literatine on
the
subjei
t anil
had
access
to onl\
a
small jxirt ol it.
1
lis
artistic talent
was
limited, as his nortr.iils
Irom
this
perioil unmistakably
re\ial. although
b\
constant
])rac-
tice
he was
developing it.
But tjuite
asiile
from the basic problem of
making
ainthing like
a
complete
and
faithfid
record of the
luitold
variety
of
North American
bird life, to
see
the
operation
through
to final
publication
(which became
his
increasingly
firm jimpose)
woidd cost
a
small
lor-
time
and call
for publishing
enterprise
on
an
tniprece-
ilentcd,
heroic
scale. The
ilay
of
the professional pub-
lisher
^vas
yet
to
lome in
.\mcrica. The
very few
American
authois \vhose
work
might sell in their
own
country
t\j)ically paiil
lor the
manufacture
of
their
books, which
were
slight
and
inexjiensive
volumes,
trstially
innocent of
illustration
because
of
the
prohibi-
tive costs
this
would have
involved.
Even the
peripa-
tetic
Parson
A\'eems,
the most
active and
imaginative
Ijookseller of his ilay,
could
not
have
moved the giant
tomes
Audubon envisaged.
What
publisher
today, for
that
matter, with all the
present
industry's
elaborate
apparatus
for promotion
and
distiibtition,
and
with its monetary
resotirces,
woidil
dream
of iniilerw
riling
a
four-volume set
of
435
illustrations
by
a
relatively
luiknown
artist,
each
vol-
tune
measuring
abotn
fort\ by
thirty
inches
and
weigli-
ing as
much as
a
strong
man
could carry, the
wliole
to
sell
lor
rouj;hl\
a
thousand
dollars
a set? (.\\u\
there
were
also
to
be
six
stout
vohnnes
of
text.)
It
woidd
seem
lUier
lolly, the
more
so since
the real
value
of
the
thousand
dollais ol
.Vudubon's
day
was
many,
many
times
what it
is today.
.\o
such
miracles
could
be
expected,
excc])t
in
the
l.nthest
reaches
of his
o\vn vision,
when
.Vudubon
blithcK
took oil
to\\ard the
.South
in
that
auttinin of
ilSjo.
He
(oidd
not have
taken a
better
direction
to
get
1V\T
CONIINI
KIHJN
rVf.E
04
A
ri>kIlOI.Ili OK
Al
Dl
HON'S work
C.ONTIM is
ON TliU
lOl.LOWINt.
PM.IS
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X
OF MKS.
OKIRI.L
M.
D.
hlllY,
NMCHIZ
0/;('
uf
Atiduhon's
fciu
hnidsc/ipes is
this
1S22 vicic
of
Xatcliez, Mississippi,
sicfpily
jx'rrlied
on
a
blufj
tihot'i'
its busliing ^t'linmcs and the teemin'g
rix'er
traj-
ftc.
In
his
typically
ungriinvnnlinil
prose,
Audubon
wrote:
On
the
lilt
.
. .
11
Neiu and
Elegant Mansion
the
properly
0/
Mr.
Pustleieait
attracts
the
Anxious
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.^J>te<<^'^i*^lf^V
:...,
_
i^*^'
i\c—o)i
llir
rii^lil
llir )a///)ii;s
of
llif
liidilli
lliinly <li\'/-rsifiril hy
poor
liiihiliilions
\ooti
(lose
llir
prospfcl
. . . Ilie
Jnil,
Court
House
are
New and
tolerable in
their
joiiii
the
Lower
pari
of
the
former
a
Boarding
House
of
some
Xole, there are
Tico Miserable
Looking Churches;
I dare not
say unattended but
think
so
.
.
.
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NEW-YORK
HISTORiaVL
SOCIETY,
COl
RTFSY ME I
ROroriT \N
MLSn ^^
VNO nnnKOF-'I
HE-MOXTH
CLIJB
^ds
A\i(\u\)on's
great
u'nrh.
tlic one
for
whiili
lii.storv
reiiieiiibrr.s
liiin.
is
1
he
Birds ol America;
to
il.s
coiii/)ili>iij^.
l)ublisliing.
Z/^CctS
' '
''^
''^
devoted
the bulk
o/
/)(,v
jiroductnie years. Plate
I
luas ^Vild
Turkey
foj>j}osite).
a
singul/irly
(ij>t clioice:
the
turkey was.
Benjamin
Franklin had
written,
a
true
original native
of
Amer-
ica
niucli
better suited
for
our
national
emblem than
the
bald
eagle—
a
biril
of
bad
moral
chanuter
. . .
generally
jxior and
ojlen
very
lousy.
Ajtei
beginning
jiubliciition
of
liis
Birds in
1S2J.
Audubon
continued
searching
out and
sketching additional
specimens,
but
the
task
was
formidable
and
as
lime
sped
by
he lame
to r/ly
more anil
more
on
his
London
engraver.
Robert
Havell, to
fill
in
the backgrounds,
.ludubon's drirwing
of
the roseate spoonbill
(above),
for
exain/ile.
had
very
little
background
:
to
the
final
eiigraxiing
(beltne),
Hirvell
added
swainps, waterways, and
a
soft
line
of
distant hills.
NE\v'-VORK
HISTORICAL SOCUTV
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NFVV VORK
My
hair
is
gray and
I
am
growing
old,
Audubon
wrote
to
his
naturalist
friend, the
Reverend
John
Bachman,
in
i8j^. He was,
in
fad,
5y,
an
age at
which
many men,
having
reached
the peak
of
their
achievement,
look
forward
to
retirement.
But
Audubon
was
just
entering on
the
second
great project
of
his
life,
drawing the
likenesses and recording the habits
of
.America's
mam-
mtils.
just
as
he had
done
with
its birds.
Published
between
/S^5
and
tS.j8
as The
X'iviparous Quad-
rupeds
of
N'orih America, it
was
a
monumental
achievement.
Bachman helped
with the text:
.Audu-
bon's
elder son,
John,
did
many
of
the
drawings and
his
brother Victor
handled
the
publishing
details.
Three
of
the
draiciiigs are reproduced here:
the
common house-mouse
labove), the
red
fox
(below),
and the northern
gray squirrel
(opposite^.
.Audubon himself
did not merely
sit
back
and
supervise.
.Many plates
are
the
fruit
of
his
own
exhausting 2,Soo-mile
round
trip
from
St. Louis
to
Fort
Union.
NATIONAL
Al-DtBON
50C1FTY,
COl RTESY
LlfC
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OOLLECIIUN
Of
MHS.
Klkin I. (IIVMIUKS.
milsMIlJ
r
V--
Qjnsects
Kcpvodxiccd
above
atul
opposite
are
two pai^es
from
Aiidulion's remarkable
little
sketchbook
of
American
insects
and reptiles, drawn
between
1S21
and
1S2J.
At
center above
is
a
small
lizard known
as a
gecko and, just to
the
right,
a
praying
mantis.
An
emperor
butterfly
ajypears at top right
on
the
facing
page,
above
11 roic including
a
grasshopper,
a
camel cricket,
and
a true
bug;
at
bottom
(enter
is a wood
cuikroacb.
Audubon was not
a
trained
entomologist,
yet
such
was
his
magic tliut
even
these
liny
creatures
spring
to
life
on the page.
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:\.
)
;f«»f-
.'«
\
L
*
C,
V*
^
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The
Battle
That
''This
ivill,
some
time hence, he a vast
empire,
llie
seal
(if
power and learning.
. .
. Xatine
has
refused
tliein
notliing,
and there
will
grow
a
people out
of
our
little spot,
England, that
will
fill
this
vast
space,
and
divide
this great
portion
of
the globe
with
the Span-
iards,
who
are possessed
of
the
other
half.
Tliat
projjhecy,
iwo hundred
and
one
years
ago,
about
the
lutiue
ol
Britain's
colonies
in
America, wns written
by the man who
had
scornlully
said in another letter lota' days
earlier:
The Americans
are
in
general
the dirtiest
most
contemptible
dogs
that you
can
conceive. 1
his
hasty
and
violent
generalization
from
a
particidar epi-
sode—the capture
ol
Loiiisbourg—
was
as
characteristic
of
the
man
as
was the far-ranging
vision sho\vn
in his
next
letter.
It
was the same
man who a
year later,
on
the
eve of
his
death
and
of
the
\ictory that
made
his name im-
mortal,
recited
some
verses
of
Gray's Elegy
in a
Coun-
try CJhurchyard,
and said to
his
staff:
1
^vould sooner
have written
that
poem
than
take Quebec. In his
own
annotated cojjy of
the Elegy
he
had imderscored
the
line:
The paths
of
glory lead but
to
the
grave. It is
yet
another
facet of
the
extraordinary character of
James
Wolfe.
The present
year,
1959,
marks
the two himdreilth
anniversary of his victory at
Quebec.
By
th;it astonish-
ing
coup,
achieved in
a
very
unconventional
manner,
he undermined
the
French position
in Canada
and
quenched the
French threat
to
the
British
colonies in
North America. Thereby
he
paved the
way for
those
colonies
to
throw oft
British
ride
within
less
than
a
generation, and start
on
their
independent
path to the
fidfillment
of his vision ol their great
future.
The
United
States might well be termed
his
grandchild, in
the
light of his
conception
coupled
^^ith
the
effect of
his
action.
Of
the
world's historic
battlefields,
none is
easier for
\_^
'H
'/eir
i>/^//ic
xya/iiiii/
cf
QUKJJEC
Scplcmber
iil75i>
u/la/frvi/i/'/^m't/'tW
/lu/M/vtYj/f
f/ii
(h/lhti
H.i
/li\if
. It'/ttWl iA/i/t,/rt/
,i
^i/tnt// til//rnr/tft/
fl<tf/t
t'iiif,/i//ifrr.i
,tii,/,
'/n,/i,Tit,>.
il'/itr/r
/in'i/itiiiY f/ir
otir/v/ii/)-r I'r Oilcbcr
'
AMTA,/.-^'....*/»Ai;,;V,L.\rRJK,l
WniTTI
.7;; old
engraving published
in
London
in iy<)/ slioius the strug
for
Qiicbec
on
tlic
nioining
of
Se/ileinher
/j.
/j^i).
In
the
lire-d
darkness
ll'olfe's men landed at
liglilly guarded
Foulon
cove,
s
By a
brilliant
maneuver
young
James
Wolfe
conquered
''^impregnable''
By
CAPTAIN
B.
24
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an
Empire
su.Mi M>
swiiri
cw
\ni
\v\
r.
\i 1
1
k^'.
nn\-
\i
(i\r vrki
mi si i \(
///(•
i/f/ti
yhk-
</i-
Qvi:bEC
/<
13
Septcnitro
17^5
.
/f
f/f'/'fl ft/It
r
mctlt
,/fj
^rott^cd »^
/ftt^/i) utt-J,^-X'jf-K^-/itWf2c
t/tr^^l^trti^fi^
t^fa/a^an/ lift
i^ei/n'ff
^z:J:^oiA<Ata: ^.
^car t{f7cifer^/nMfe
t/uTa/iU/ttlif
^u(/t/rtracit
nri'iiic.
niHnjxmwrcd
the
jnchcis.
anil ilrnr
u/}
jor
halllc
on llir
iif
Abrii)iiun.
Tlir French.
r\/)r'(//« ;
iilliiih
below Ouehec.
It) msli lhii/ii ^h
the
toxen
iind
foiin
quiilily
to
meet
the
<i.^.\iiiilt.
the visitor
lo trace
and
visualize
than
that of
Quebec.
The
course ol tiie ])reliniinary
moves, antl their
signifi-
cance, is
made
clear
by
the
contoins ol the St.
Law-
rence River.
The scene ol \\'olle's decisive
step,
the
landing
at
a
cove
a
mile anil
a hall
upstream from
the
city,
is
close
to where
liie
transatlantic
liners
now
dis-
embark
their
passengers.
Tiie
battle itself was fought
out
on
top
of
the cliffs
above
this landing
place—
on
the
plateau talletl the
Hcighis,
or
Plains,
of
Abraham,
Avhich lies
immediately lo
the west of
the
city.
The
capture of
Quebec and
its
sequel, the conquest
of Canada,
formed
the liigli-water
mark of tlie
tide of
British
imperialism
in
the
eighteenth
century.
That
was cmphasi/ed
by
Sir
John
Seelcy,
the
Ciambridge
his-
torian
of the late Victorian
.\ge, in his famous
book.
The
Expansion
of
England.
In liis lyrical Avords:
That
victory vvas
one of
a long scries, which to
contempo-
raries
seemed fabulous, so
that the nation came
out
of the
struggle
intoxicated
with
glory, and
England
stood
upon
a
pinnacle
of
greatness
which
she had never
reached
before.
We
have forgotten how. through al
that remained
of
the
eighteenth century,
the
nation looked back upon
those
two
or
three
splendid
years as
upon
a happiness
that could
never
return
and how
long it continued to be the unicjue
boast
of
the Englishman
That Chathuni'i
Lani^nace
icns his
nintlier-loiigiie
And
]\'olfe'.s
great heart
com
l>atriot
with
liis
oiun.
Englishmen had need of such
comfort in the
next
war,
the American
Re\olution.
The leteiuion of
Can-
ada then looketi like
poor
compensation
for
the
loss of
their older colonies in
North
.\merica.
Thus
Wolfe's
fame glowed all
the more
in the
con-
trast
bet^veen
the
glory
of the Seven
^'ears'
^\'ar and
the
lumiiliation
of the
eight
years' war
that
followetl.
Even
before
that,
the brightness of
his lame owed
much
to
the
suddenne.ss of its growth, and
to the
hero's
death in
the
hoiu' ol victory.
He
was
a
meteor
that ap-
peared
abo\e the
hoii/on only
a
yeai
bclore he
ilied.
and \anishcil in a
bla/e
ol
lorv at thirtv-two.
—
a}i(/
secured North Jtnerica
for
the
English-speaking
peoples
HART
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MC
CORD MUSEUM,
MC
GILL
UXIVERSITY, MONTREAL
This
sketch
of
Jauiei.
Wolfe
WHS
(Irnuiri
nl
Qiiebec
by
one
of
his
brigadiers,
George
Tou'tishetid,
and
presented
to
the
British
adjutant
gen-
eral. Isaac
B(irre—in
later
years a
(hniiijiion
of
the
American
colonists,
who
named
Barre,
I'ermonl.
ami
Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania,
for
him.
Wolfe
did
not
nf)-
firciiate
I'ownshend's
bar-
riuh-ioum cartoons,
many
of
whicli
were
aimed at
him. and they hardly .\j>oke.
In
his
metcoiiikc rise and course, AVolfe ^vas
tlie
Orde
Wingate—
the
brilliant,
temperamental
inno\ator
and combat
leader—ol the eighteenth centiny, but his
achievement
was greater
and
more cndining.
Jn per-
sonality
there
was much similarity
bet^veen the
two
men.
Both
^\ere
supercharged with ilxnamism
and au-
dacity. Both were intensely
ambitions,
instincti\elv
re-
bellions, and irreverent
towartl
their
elders
and
official
superiors.
Both
were fdled with
self-confidence,
\et
had
streaks
of humility. Both
had the
divine
discontent
of
genius, but
often
expressed it
in
a
way that was far
from
divine.
Both
had
great
pertinacity
along
\\ith
temperamental instability,
so that
they fell
into
moods
ol
deep
depression—or
more
often, ble\s' oft
in
exas-
peration against the
momentary
cause
ol
frustration,
fjoth
made
their
marks
as skilled trainers
ol
troops
in
minor
tactics
on
imconventional
lines.
Each
was
given
his
great opportiniitx
b\ a
great
wartime
prime min-
ister—William
Pitt (later
Earl
ol
Cihathani)
in
the
first
case
and
Clhin
chill in
the
seconil.
^N'olfe's
birthplace \vas ^\'esterham in
Kent,
and
his
boyhood association ^\ith this village maile
it a place
of
pilgrimage
in later
generations—drawing many
visi-
tors
there
initil
the
\illage
became
a
still greater draw
as the
coimtry home ol
Winston
C^hiuchill. Constant
reminder
of
Wolfe's career
through
such propinquity
could
hardly
fail to influence
Chinxhill,
a
man
so
his-
torically
minded,
when it came to a
cjuestion
of
giving
opportiniity to another
yoimg
soldier
of similar stamp.
\\'hen
^\'olle
was sent to
captme
Quebec
by
Pitt,
he
^\as
eight years
yoimger
than Wingate
^^as
when
sent
to
Binina
b)
tihunhill,
but iheir length of mili-
26
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tary sci\icc
\\as
almost
f(|ual
al ihf
time
wlu-ii
tin-
great
oppoi
iiinitv came
to
each
ol iliem. For WDlle
ivas only
loin
leen
wlieii
he
betaine
a
junior officer in
his
father's
res^iment
ol
marines,
and
sixteen
when he
clis-
tingmsiiecl himsell,
as
acljiilant ol
the Twellth
Foot,
in
battle
at
Dettingeii in
17^3—
the
last
battle
in
which
an
English
king
led his
troops in
person.
Three
years
later
AV'olle
made a
Imther
mark in
the
Battle
ol
Cadloden
Moor
in
Scotland, when the
arm\
ol Prince
(Charles
Edward, the
Young Pretender,
was deleated
and ihe
Jacobite
ho])es ol regaining the
throne
irom
C.eorge II
were
extinguished. W'oUe
then
retmned
to
the
Conti-
nent,
and
b\
his
twenty-first birihd.iy
\vas
a
veteran
of
six
campaigns.
Peace came
soon
afterward, and he
went
back to
garrison duty in
Scotland,
soon becoming
com-
mander
of
his new regiment,
the I
Wentieth
Foot.
He made
this regiment
into
what
others termed
the
best-drilled and
disciplined
in
the
Hiiiish
Army.
One
of
his officers
described him
as
a
paragon.
He
neither
drinks,
cinses, gambles,
nor
rinis
after
women. So we
make him
otn jjatiern.
But
his own
letters
were
fidl
of
discontent,
comjilaining
th.it
his
prospects
were
sterile,
and
that
barren battalion
conversation
blinits
the
faculties.
He
liked the
civilian society in
Glasgo\\'
no better,
saying
that
the men
\vere
designing
aticl
treacherous, with
their immediate
interests always
in
view. . . . The Avomeii,
coarse, cold
and
cunning,
for
ever
enquiring
after man's
circtmistances.
\VhiIe
set-
ting
a
good
example
h\
attending
every
Simday at
the
Kirk,
he
bitingly remarked
that the
generality
of
Scotch
jjreachers
are
excessive
blockheads.
He
found
Itxal
society
somewhat
more
congenial
when
the
regiment
moved
to
the
rebel
area ol the
Highlands.
Here
he
gave
fortnightly
dances
as
a
means
of
restorinsi
ocxl
relations,
and
remarked
of the
women: They are perfecth
wild
as the
hills
ihat
breed
them;
but
they
lay aside
iluir
principles
lor
the
sake
of soinul
and
movement.
When
the
regiment was
later
nuned
to
Dcvonshiie.
he
applied
the
same treat-
ment,
and
was
soon
able
10 s.i\
:
I ha\e
danced the
officers
into the
good
graces
ol
ihe [.icobite
women
here
abouts,
who were prejudiced
anainst
them.
For
him.
such play
was
onl\
.1
means
to
an
end. and
he
felt
nuich relief
when
war bioke
<iiil
afresh willi
France,
in
1751).
Meantime he
had
de\<)tecl much time
to reading current and
classic
books
on
the miliiary
art, in jjreparation
for the leading
role he
hoped
to
fill.
He had
also developed
the musketry skill
of his
men
to
a
high pitch by
constant
firing practice
at
var-
ied
targets. His insistence on its
value
\vas to
he
proved
al
Ouebec—
where
two (jiiick,
ellectivc
voilevs
won
die
battle, and
gained
an empire.
Like
most
leloiniers W'olle
was
lieicelx ciiliial
ol
obsiruc tioii and incllic ienc
\
, s.ixing:
We
are
la/\ in
lime
ol
peace, and
ol
couise
waiu
vigilance
and
activ-
ity in
war.
Our
militarv education
is
by far
the
worst
in
r.urojje.
And
again: We are the
most
egregicjus
blunderers
in
w:ir ihal e\er
look
the
hatchet
in hand.
His
criticisms were home
oiu
by ihe mismanaged
seaborne
expedition
against
Rochefoil. on
the west
ccjast
of Fiance, in
1757.
vvhich
ended in lulility
ilirough defective
combination between
the military
and naval
leaders.
But
Wolle
hinrsell, one
of
the
jun-
ior
leaders,
emeiged with credit
from
ihe
court of in-
(juiiv.
Moreover,
a
letter he
wrote
in
lellection
on the
expedition
w:is a model
exposition
of the
way
to
con-
cfuct
amphibious operations.
After
this
check, Pitt decided
10 strike at
France's
J'x.
overseas
possessions. In
.\iiierica,
England
and
l-.urope were
to
be
fought
for, he later
declared. The
main
exjjedition
was to be against
the great
French
fortress
of Lcjuisbouig on
Ciape Breton
Island,
which
dominated the sea
approaches to
Clanada:
other cam-
paigns were
to
be
directed
against the forts at
Ticon-
cferoga
and
Diuiiiesne.
In
Pitt, England had
a
minister strong
enough to
sweep aside military
cusiom and
seniority,
and, ]jass-
ing
over whole
columns
ol
the
army list,
to pick
his
own
instruments.
For comniand
ol the
exjjedition
lie
chose a
colonel
ol lortv.
Jeffrey
.\mhersi-nKiking
him
a
general—
and
appoinied
Wolle.
who
w;is ten
vears
voiinger,
as
one
of the three
brigadiers. .\
miserable
siiilor,
Wolfe
sultered badly
during the
voyage,
but
fought
clown his
seasickness
when action
was
immi-
nent—as
he
always
did
his more
deep-seated
maladies.
.\fter
reconnoitering
the
rocky
and
lorbidding
coast
line,
.\mheist
decided
that
Wolle
should carry
out the
main
landing at
Freshwater
Cove
in
Oabarus
Bay,
some four miles
wesi
of Loiiisbourg.
while
the
other two
brigadiers
leinted
landings
al
poinls
nearer the
lor-
tress. This
w;is dillerent
from
ihe
plan
that
Wolfe
had
devised.
The
landhig-on
June
S,
1738—
came
at
the
most
strongly
defended
point,
and
ihe
boats
were
greeted
with
such
a
hail of
shot that
Wolle
had
to
sig-
nal them
to
sheer
oil.
However,
three
on
the
extreme
light were
partially
sheltered by
a
projecting
spit
of
land,
and
touched
bottom
among the
rocks at
this
poiiii.
Wolle
immediatelv
directed
the rest of
the
boats
towaitf
ihis laiul; and
alihough
m;my
were
stove
in,
ihe
bulk
of
the
troops
scrambled
ashore
led
by
\\'olle,
who
carried a
cane
as
his only
weajjon. They
pressed
lorw:ircl and
look ihe
nearest French
battery
by
as-
sauli.
Me;inwhile,
with
the
enemv's
:iiicniion
occupied
1)\
Wolfe,
another
l)rig:icle
landed
l.iriher
west.
The
Fieiuh,
iluis
ineiKKed
on
Ixuli
li.nikv, lied
beloie
their
lelieal
lo
l.oiiisbouig
v\as <
ul
oil.
le.iving
iheii
guns
in
the
h.iiuls
ol
ihe
British.
27
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iturlhwcil
j}ait
of
Q_ucbec,
from
the
St.
Cluula
River.
Quebec
under
the
gun
drawings on tliete
tzuo
pnges
ivere
niniie in
slicU-lorn
after
the
surrender,
hy
Richard
Short.
I>ur\er
of
Priiuc
of
Oningc.
De.scribing
the
scene in
MoiUtalm
\Vollc.
Francis
Pnrhnian
unote:
'The
[Brili.^h]
fleet
was
the
great
river
leas
left
n
solitude:
and
tlie
cliill
days
of
Xovewber fmssed
over Qjiebec
in
allernalions
of
rain
frost,
sunshine
and
snow.
. .
.
Their
own artiUerx
had
battered
the
f^Uice
thai it
was
not
easy
[for
the
Hrittsh
to
find
shelter.
. . .
the
liishoj/s Palace . . .
was
a
of
tottering
masonry,
and
[other]
buildings icere a
of
ruin,
wliere ragged
boys
were
playing
at
see-saiu
the
fallen
jilanks and
limbers.
. .
.
The
Cathedral
burned
to
a
shell.
The
solid
front
of
the College
of
the
teas
ftockmarked
by
numberless
cannon-balls,
and
the
church
of
the
Order
was
-woefully
shaltereil.
The
of
lite Rccollets
suffered
still
more. The
bombshells
fell
through the
roof
had broken
into
Ihc jyavement,
as
they
burst had
thrown
uj]
the
bones and skulls
of
the
. . .
The
commissary-general
,
Berniers, thus
describes
. .
the
slate
of
the town:
'Qiiebec is
nothing but a
shafjeless
of
ruins. Confusion,
disorder, pillage,
reign e~ven among
inhabitants,
for
the
English
make
examjyies
(if
sei>erity
diix. Everybody
rushes
hither
and thither,
leilhout
III//)'.
. .
.
Never
zuas
there seen
such a sight.'
But
the
next
biejj'i ^\x•rc
inoie
pioloiigt'd,
;iik1
the
delay
inipaiictl the greater phm
lor
the contjiiest ol
Canada, pre\eiiting
the
release ol Amherst's
force
for
co-operation
with
Cleneral
James
Abercronibie
in
the
campaign on
the
mainland.
Eventtially.
the issue was
decided
by
the
demorali/iiig
effect of a heavy
battery
that
Wolfe had
got
into position
on
the hills
overlook-
ing
Louisfjoing haibor from
the
north^vest—and
on
Jtdy
27
the French capitulated.
Seven
\\eeks
after the landing,
the strongest fortress
in
the
New \\'orld had
lallen,
but Wolfe
was dissatis-
fietl. His letters are
characteristic:
We
made
a
rash
and ill-ad\ ised
attempt to land, and
\>\
the
greatest of
good fortune imaginable we succeeded.
If
we had
known
the
country,
and
had acted
with more
vigour,
half the
garrison
at least
(tor they
\\ere all out)
must
have fallen
into our hairds
immediately we
landed.
Oin-
next
operations
were
exceedingly
slow
and inju-
dicious. . .
.
Then, as
to
the
next
move,
he
^vrote:
I
do
not
penetrate oin-
General's
intentions.
If he
means
to
attack
Quebec,
he must
not
lose
a
moment.
Since
the
naval
authorities
were
reluctant to
rim
the
risks of the
passage
up
the
St.
La^\'rence River,
Wolfe
departed
to harry
the
French
settlements on the
gidf—
as a
diversion to
occupy tlie
attention
of
the
Marcjuis
de
Montcalm,
the
Frencli
commander
in
Canada,
and
prevent
him
from
reinforcing the troops who
were
op-
posing
Abercrombie's
overland
advance.
Before
AN'olfe
returned
to
Loiiisbourg, Amherst
liad
sailed
for
New
York
to
support
Abercrombie.
.\
letter
that
^\'olie
sent
after
him
gives
a
side
light
on the influence
Wolfe
had
won, allowing
liim to
give
advice to his
superior:
.\n
offensive,
daring
kind
of
^\ar
will awe
the
Indians and
ruin the
French.
Block-houses,
and a
trembling
defen-
sive,
encourage
the meanest
scoundrels to
attack
us.
In
October
^\olle
sailed for England to
recover his
health,
wliiih had
suttereil
horn
the strain.
Pitt had
intendetl
him
to remain in
.\merica, but the
onler
missed
him, and
hearing
this,
^\'olfe
^^rote
to
put him-
self
right
^\ith the
Minister, expressing
his willingness
to
serve
again
in America, antl
jjarticularh
in the
river St.
Lawrence.
Pitt had
learned, from
many
soiuces, to
whom
was
due
the
chief credit ol
the
Louis-
bomg
victory:
and
WoUe's letter
ga\e
him
the assm-
ance
upon
which
to
take the
momentous
decision
of
giving this
young
soklier
ol
thirt\-one
commanil
ol the
expedition
no^v
planned
against
Quebec.
On
recei\ing
Pitt's
summons,
\\'olfe
hastened to
Lonilon.
anil
the
two remaining
months
belore
he
saileil
were
occujjieil
^vith
prepaiations.
He named
Robert
Monckton and
James
.Minrav,
an
old enemy
who
hail
won his praise at
Loiiisbourg, as
two of
his
brigadiers,
and
accepted
Pitt's
suggestion
of
George
The
interior
of
the Jesuit
ihurcli.
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SIG.Ml
ND
S\Ml I
I
<,\S \III
\\
\
». Ml VR\
.
KOY M. OM \RI()
Ml
S
'Inw
nsliciul
.IN
llu'
lliiul. I
ln'
(
ousel
\
;il i\('
(.coiuf
|1
w.is
so
Uii
coiiveriLiI b)
W'olk's
iiicrii
;iiul ilic disasieis
thai hail
bdalleii
earlier
coinmaiulcis. thai
wlu-n
ihc
Duke
ol Newcastle
ileclaretl
iliat W'ollc was
iiiatl. he
retorted: Mail,
is
her
Then
1
hope
he will
bite some
ol my
other generals.
WoUe
sailed
from England
in the
middlr
ol I'ebru-
ary
alter
writing his
mother a
larewell letter
whiih
in
its
Spartan
brevitx
shatters
\arious
imaginati\e
ac-
lounis that ha\e
sin \i\ed. It
said simply:
1 lu'
(oiin.ilin
111
lakiiij;
1lm\c
shiniUI
In- js
iiiiuli
as
possible
avoiileil; tlicrclorr 1
prrler this
nulhiul
iil
nllcriiis^ my
.nooil
wishes
and
duly
in
iii\ lallier
and
Id
noil I
shall carry this
business throiii;h
uiili
ni\
best
abilities. I
lu-
itsi,
\ou
know,
is
in
the
hands
ol l'ri)\ iilencc. to
whose
lare
1
lio|)e
\iiur
Sood
life
and
(ondutl
will
rctoninieiul
your
son.
Although
I'ill
had
intended him
to
ha\e
iweh'e
thoiisanil
men.
W'olle founil
less
than
nine
thoiisanil
available
at
Louisbourg. his
base,
and
many
ilehiien-
cies
in
equipment.
Moreover,
Amherst's overland
ad-
vance
from
Xew
Y'ork
x\as
so
tardy
that
the
French
were
able
to concentrate
some sixteen
thousand
men
around
Quebec to oppose \\'olle.
But
their quality
was
low,
and their great commander,
Montcalm,
suHered
much hinilrance
from
the
governor of
Canaihi, the
Marquis
ile
V'aiidreuil,
and his
corrupt subordinates.
Even so,
the French
position seemed
to be, and
was
ileemeti
by the
defender,
impregnable —as
V'auilreuil
assured
the
government
in
Paris.
The
guns
of the
for-
tress
of Quebec,
perched
loftily
on
the
north
shore
ot
the St. Lawrence, commanded the
river; the lanil ap-
proach from
the
east
was
barred
by
the
tributary rivers
.Montmorency
and
St.
Charles,
and
that
from
the
west,
above
Quebec,
by the
clifts of the
Plains
of
Abraham.
Trusting in
this
obstacle to cover his
western
Hank,
and in the guns of
the
fortress to
control the
n:irrow
passage
that
led to the
iqjpei reaches
ol
the
ri\ei,
Montcalm
posteil his arinx
in an
entrendied
position
below
Quebec—along
the six-mile stretch
ol
the
north
shore between
the
St.
Charles
anil the
Montmorency.
On reaching
the
.American
side
of
the
.\ilanti(
on
April
30,
W'olle
had found
to his
disgust
that
Reai .Ad-
miral Philip Durell
was
still
at
anchor
at llalilax in-
steail of
carrying
out W'olle's instructions to bloik the
entrance
to
the
St.
Lawrence
as
soon
as
the
ice
liegan
to
melt.
.\s
a
lesidt
ol
this
delay,
although
Dinell was
sent
oil
at
onie.
ihiee French
frigates
and
a
score
of
storeships
slipped
through
anil
up
to
()iiebec
before
the
entrance
was closed, strengthening Montcalm's
]>osition
anil
impairing ^\'olfe's jjlan.
Forttmateh .\d-
miral
(Miarles
Saiuitlers,
the connnaniler ol the
main
Meet lh:n
had
sailed with
Wolle
from England,
was
a
man
ol
greater
\igoi'.
and iheir (
o
operiition
w;is to
77/ '
cdlliiuliiil
.
Ii
\iiil
ii}lli<j,c.
mid
liiiuUcI iliunli.
The
intcndaiit'.s
juilace.
The C Inn
ill
0/
.\i>lic
Dmiic
dc
In
\
icloirc.
'1
III'
iiilrtiiii i)j llir lirtoUrl
iliuiill.
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^^_\^
iS^^i^'^W-
0\.
GALLFRY
OF
C
\N \I>A,
COURTESY
Life
P?;^^
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^%.
provide
one
of the few good
exanij)le.s in
IJiit;iin's
his-
i()i\
ol
combined
action
between
army
and navy. More
(lila\.
however, was
caused
because
I.ouisbourg
harbor
\\as
still blocked
^\ith lie.
WoUe
could
not
land
there
until the miildle ol
May, but
he completed
his prepa-
rations
and
sailed
lor
Quebec
by
June
i.
1 he voyage to
Quebec was in
itsell a
very ha/artlous
pan
ol
the expedition,
lor
the
(inrents and shoals
oi
liu'
Si.
Lawrence are
notoi
ions,
and its athievement
wiihoiit mishap astonishetl the
French.
Vaudreuil, the
gcnernor,
wrote: The enemy
have
passed
sixty
ships
ol
war
where we hardly dared risk
a
vessel
ol
a hun-
dred
tons.
W'oUe disembarked
on
the
Isle
ol
Orleans,
lour
miles below
Quebec, on
Jiuie
27.
His
reconnaissance
discovered the
French
disjjositions
and
the extent
to
\\hich
.\dmiral
Dinell's negligence had
enabled them
lo prepare
to
meet the attack.
The
long
line ol steep
brown
cliffs,
topped
by
entrenchments,
was
a
dainiting
sight.
Aforeover,
the
French
now
had,
besides
lloating
batteries,
more
than a
hundred
gmis
mounted in
well-
chosen
positions to
conmiand
the
river
and
likely
land-
ing places.
Further evidence of their
preparedness
came
on
the night
of
the
twenty-eighth,
w^hen the
French
loosed
seven
fire
ships
downstream
against the
British
fleet.
But
the crews
set light
too soon
to their
explosive
loads,
aiui the
danger
W'as
averted
1)\ the
coolness
of the British
sailors,
who
lowed
out and
to\\ed the
Ijla/ing hulks
ashore.
Wolfe
retorted \vith
a
promjjt
coiuiterstroke,
seizing
Pointe
Levi
on the
south
bank
of tite ri\er
opposite
Quebec.
Here the
passage
;vas little
more than half
a
mile
wide,
and
from this
\antage
jjoint
his
ginrs
were
able
to
bombard
the
loAvei
pait
of
the
city.
Montcalm
had
wished
to
post a
strong
detachment
on
the south
bank, but
his
jiroposal hail
been
overruled
by
\'au-
dreuil—on the
mistaken
assumption
that the
French
guns would
make it
impossible
for the
British
to
estab-
lish
batteries
in
emplacements
close
enough
lor
an
elfective
bombardment
ol
the
city.
But
although
Wolfe
succeeded
in
getting
his
ginis tlug
in,
and
then gradu-
ally
crumbled
the
Lower
Town into
ruins,
their gall-
ing ellect
was
too grailual
to
soke
his
assaidt
problem
CONTIMKD ON
\'\i.r.
105
In
the
cinitral
section
of
licnjnmiu
Wrsl's famous
Imittliiig,
The
fJeath
of
WdHc. the
\oun;j,
lino
lies nioiliilly
wounded
on
llic
Plums
of
IhiiilniiN
.
irilli
llic
rncniy
fleeing
mill
vic-
toi\
won.
A
singidii
slum
lies llie
blixnl
from
tlie ftiliil
lung
leouiid
while
iil
left
WOlfe's iiideile-c(iml>.
C(ij)tnin
Ileney
Siiiilh.
and
his
ndjulnnt
general.
Colonel liarre.
kneel
solid-
lijiislv
over him.
Standing
at
left,
a
cloth
over
his
oxen
wound,
IS
Robert
.Mom litoii
.
Wolfe's
senior
brigadier.
Most
of
lliose
shown
were
mil
iiitiiiill\
at
the
siene. and it
is
said
that
West iKlmilh'
ihiiige, a
fee
/ i
jiiiltnig
them
into
the
j>i(tiire.
31
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-^^
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In iSpS,
the
depression
which
had
followed
the
Panic
of
'p} was in
its third
year.
Debt,
business
failure,
unemployment
,
and labor unrest loere
spreading; to many, revolu-
tion
seemed just
a step
away.
This
luas the setting
for
the bitter
presidential
contest
between
Republican
William
McKinley and Democrat
Willia7n
Jennings
Bryan, and
the
great
debate
betiueen
the
advocates
of
sound
money and
the
supporters
of
the
inflationary panacea,
free silver.
In a
chapter
from
her long-awaited new book, In
the
Days
of McKinley,
Pulitzer
prize-winner
Margaret
Leech
tells how McKinley
and
his
famous
manager, Marcus
Alonzo
Hayina,
conducted and won
a
campaign
in
which the candidate
never
left
home.
The
book
is published by Harper
ir
Brothers.
The
Front
Porch
Campaign
While
Bryan
stumped up and
down
the
/and,
McKinley
let
the
voters
come
to
his lawn
in
Canton—
and
they
came
By MARGARET
LEECH
In
the
later
years of the nineteenth century,
the
American
scene was
ornamented
by three
celebrated
friendships. The letters of
John
Hay
and Henry
Adams
attest
that the
hearts
of
their
exclusive
Washington
salon were joined
in a rare
intellectual
communion.
The
corre-
spondence of
Cabot
Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt,
concerned
though
it
was
with
their
grosser
po-
litical ambitions, reveals
an
affinity
scarcely less elevated
in
refinement
and
sympathetic
exchange.
The
love of
William McKinley and
the Ohio
business
magnate,
Marcus
A.
Hanna,
has not left
a comparable
record.
Their few surviving letters
are
confidential
rather
than
intimate.
There
are
formal missives from McKinley, most of
them
dictated
and
faintly
odorous
of
the
letter
press
or
carbon
copy; and some
scribbled notes
from Hanna
on minor
political
questions, usu-
ally
matters of
patronage.
Perhaps
not
much
has
been
concealed
or
destroyed.
When
parted,
these
two
communicated
over the
long-distance telephone,
or through
that
more
ancient
medium,
the
private
emissary.
They were
practical men, without
a
trace
of the
scholar
or
dilettante.
The
basis
of
their
alliance was
the commitment
of
the
Republican
party
to
the
business
interests.
Hanna's first
overtures
to
McKinley
had disclosed
the harmony
of their
minds,
both
in politi-
Eager
crowds
thronged
to
Canton
to
hear
McKinley
speak
from
the
front
porch
of
his
North
Market
Street
home.
In
this
photo, Hanna
(seated at
far left)
listens,
hat
in
hand;
Cabot
Lodge
is behind
the pitcher.
American
Heritage
Book
Selection
COnfRJCHT
© 1959 BY
M.UICAK£T
L££CH PULITZEH
ss
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Behind
the
scene: Mark
Hanna
cal
purpose and
in
the
choice
of the
human
instrument
for its
fulfillment.
Hanna had shrewdly appraised the
America
of
his
day.
He saw that the problems
of govern-
ment
had
become problems
of
money. He wanted
to
place
the
corporations in
the
saddle, and make them
pay
in advance
for
the
ride. McKinley looked upon
the
great
industrialists as
the
leaders
in
the
march
of na-
tional
progress, the
source of high wages
and
full
em-
ployment
for
all
the
people;
and he
thought of
their
financial
backing
of his
presidential
candidacy
as
a
contribution
to
the
patriotic cause
of
protection.
Hanna put
the
situation
in
balder terms,
but both
arrived
at
the
same
conclusion.
The
partnership
had
naturally
involved a close
per-
sonal association.
Hanna
was
an
expansive
man, blufi,
hearty, and
dynamic. Though
his
speech was
rough
and his
manner
aggressive, he made warm friends, as
well
as
hot enemies;
and
his advanced opinions
on the
relations
of management and
labor,
and
his
just
and
cordial dealings with
his own
employees
had
brought
him the
esteem of
the
workingmen
of
Ohio.
In
choos-
ing
McKinley
as
the object on which
to lavish his ener-
gies, Hanna
had not made
a
purely
rational decision
He
had
been
magnetized
by a polar
attraction.
Cynical
in
his
acceptance
of
contemporary
political practices,
Hanna
was
drawn
to McKinley's
scruples and ideal-
istic
standards,
like a hardened man
of
the
world
who
becomes
infatuated
with
virgin
innocence.
That his
influence
ruled McKinley was
the
invention
of
the
po-
litical
opposition, of young
Mr.
Hearst's
newspapers
in
particular. Hanna,
on
the
contrary, treated McKin-
ley
with conspicuous
deference. The
Kansas
City
re-
porter William
Allen
White, who thought
Hanna
the
better man of
the
two,
was
obliged to admit
that
he
was just a
shade
obsequious in McKinley's
presence.
Charles G.
Dawes
noticed in his
close
association
wit
both men
that
McKinley
gave the
orders,
and Hanna
obeyed
them without
question. Herman
Henry Kohl
saat, the
Chicago
newspaper
proprietor, wrote tha
Hanna's attitude toward
McKinley
was
always that
o
a
big, bashful
boy
toward
the
girl
he
loves. Hanna
told the
story himself.
He said
that
somehow he
fel
for
McKinley
an
affection
that
could not be
explained
but he
explained
it
very well.
It made
Hanna
feel
twenty years
younger
to
spen
a
social
evening with
his
friend.
On
a
house
party
McKinley
was like a big
boy.
When he
laughed,
h
laughed heartily
all
over,
enjoying
a
joke on him
self and
loving
to
get a
joke on
Hanna,
and
ring al
the
changes
on
it.
At
their
Sunday
evening
concerts
he
would
urge
Hanna to
raise his
tuneless
voice,
in
sisting that it was
a
sweet
tenor. He
was
a pleasan
tease. He
was
fond
of
the
theater, and
delighted
i
meeting
the
actors who
came
to
Hanna's
house.
The
best
times of all for
Hanna
were the
hours
lat
at
night
in the den at
his house
in Cleveland,
whe
the other
members of
the
house party
had
gone
to
bed
and just
the two
of
them had
their
heart-to-heart
talks
puffing
their cigars and
looking
into
each
other's
faces
Years
later, he
could
still
see
the
kindly, quizzical loo
in
McKinley's
eyes when he
said,
Mark, this
seems
t
be right and
fair
and just. I
think
so,
don't
you?
Hanna remembered
too
how
McKinley's
eyes
woul
sparkle
at
the
suggestion that
the
tariff bill
which h
had sponsored
as
a
congressman had
brought
Repub
lican
defeat
in the
presidential
election of
1892,
an
how
he
would
admit
it
might
be
so,
but
wait
and
see
Mark—wait
and
see.
Hanna
remembered that
McKin
ley said,
A good
soldier
must always
be
ready
fo
duty,
and
another time, There
are
some
things
Mark, I
would not do
and
cannot
do,
even
to
becom
President of
the United
States.
Together
these
two
made
one perfect
politician.
I
the
foreground
was
the
zealous
protagonist
of hi
party's
causes, the
speaker
who could
inspire faith
i
well-worn platitudes,
the
moralist
who
spurned
com
mitments,
the diplomat
who avoided
unpleasantness
Behind
him moved the practical
businessman,
whos
brain
was
unclouded
by
muzzy
ideals;
the
clever
or
ganizer,
who could push and
publicize,
make
deal
and
raise money;
the
blunt and bad-tempered
fighter
McKinley's
indirection
of
mind and method
combined
with
his
cautiousness and diffidence
to
unfit him
fo
openly
promoting
his own advancement. His
reticenc
was always
his great
flaw
as a
leader. With the growt
of his
importance,
he had become increasingly
forma
and guarded,
wary
of
committing
himself on all
point
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the
tariff.
McKinley's political
skills were
in-
He did
not
comprehend
or
cultivate the art
public relations. His excessive
modesty was
a
curi-
defect
in
a
man
of
such
resolute
ambition.
McKin-
could freely ask
favors
for others;
he
could work
for the
party;
but
he shrank from seeming
to
his own interests
forward,
and
preferred
neglect
to
favorable
personal
notice in
the
newspapers.
On
the candidate's
behalf,
Mark
Hanna
pulled
the
strings
of
money and organization
and
pub-
He has advertised
McKinley,
Theodore
Roose-
would
exclaim,
as
if he
were a
patent medicine
was like
a
talented
artist who
needed an im-
a press
agent,
and an angel. In Mark Hanna,
found all
tliree.
in retirement
at his
home town, Canton,
Ohio,
had not passed
the spring
of
1896
in
un-
contemplation
of
the progress
of
his precon-
canvass.
His emergence
as
a
formidable
con-
for the
Republican
nomination
had started the
press
snapping
at his
heels,
with the New York
leading
the pack.
McKinley's record
was bare
hidden
scandals.
He
had
worked hard.
He
had not
money.
His
public career
had
been as
as
his
private life was upright. He had
few
ene-
and
his
Canton neighbors had nothing
but good
tell
of
him. His
bankruptcy
while
he was
governor
of
was the only
incident
on which
the
Journal
could
sten scurrilous assertion
and
innuendo.
The
Hearst
Alfred Henry Lewis,
raked over
the
and
produced
tales
of
McKinley's
reckless
ex-
and his bondage
to
the men who had
aided
Some
of the mud splashed. McKinley's financial
became a favorite
sneer,
vigorously exploited
a
time
by
the
respectable Nation. Lewis caught
attention
when he wrote,
Hanna
and
the
will shuffle him
and deal him
like
a
pack
of
but he
went beyond
the bounds of
partisan
in
his aspersions on
McKinley's backers
as
syndicate gambling
for
a
White House. The
did
far
better when it concentrated its venom
the alleged chief of the syndicate,
the
wicked
mil-
Mark
Hanna.
To
strike
at
McKinley through
manager became
the established
policy
of the
opposition.
Before the
campaign
ended,
had been made the
scapegoat
for all the sins
of
and corruption. The
Journal
did
not scruple to
him as a
union-smasher,
the
warmest
enemy of
workingman, who
for thirty
years
had
torn
at
the
anks of
labor like
a wolf.
Still
more effective
in influence
than
Lewis
was
the
talented cartoonist,
Homer Davenport. In
spring
of
1896,
he made an unknown
Ohio busi-
nessman
the most
infamously
caricatured figure
in
America.
Hanna was depicted as
a
brutal,
obese pluto-
crat,
the symbol of
sly
malice and bloated greed, cov-
ered with
moneybags and dollar signs. Behind this
monster the little candidate cowered
in
his
big Na-
poleonic
hat. Hanna
was
the
puppet-master
who
pulled
McKinley's
strings;
the ventriloquist who spoke
through the dummy, McKinley; the
organ-grinder
for
whom
the monkey, McKinley,
danced.
Davenport,
at
this time, had
never seen
Hanna.
It
was
considered
a
clever
political
stroke that the cartoonist had
been
taken
to
call
on
McKinley;
he was
unable
to
repeat
the
savage drawings
after
he met their original. Never-
theless,
the representation
of
McKinley
as
pitiable
and
victimized
was
a
poor service
to his
reputation.
The
graphic
impression of his
spineless
subservience
to
Hanna
would
long
outlast the lies
of Alfred
Henry
Lewis.
At
a time when
the
nation still suffered
from
the
depression
that
followed
the
Panic
of 1893,
McKinley's
silence
on the currency question
was
the cause of the
most valid
and
effective
attacks on
his candidacy.
Anx-
ious to
avoid
any commitment that
might
damage
his
popularity
in the
western
mining states,
he
main-
tained
that
his position
was perfectly
understood
from
his
public
utterances.
But, when McKinley
stood
on
his record
on
the
financial question,
his
footing
ap-
peared
perilously
insecure both to
his
political
op-
ponents and
to
the
goldbugs
of
his
own party.
His
refusal to
speak,
in
the
face
of his
endorsement
by
western
silverite
conventions
in
1896,
antagonized
and
frightened
businessmen,
and
a vociferous
demand
The
cartoonist
Homer Davenport sketched Hanna
and
his
various
features
two
different
ways:
as
he
actually
looked
in the
flesh
(left)
and in
caricature {right).
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came
from
the
Republicans
of
the
East
that
the
candi-
date
should
explicitly
avow
his
opinions
and
inten-
tions.
Hanna
had
originally
favored
plumping
for
the
gold
standard,
but
McKinley
had
declined
to
listen.
He
was
determined
to
bid
for
the
nomination
on
the
tariff
issue
alone.
He
still
regarded
the
furor
over
the
currency
as a
passing
flurry,
which
might
be
calmed
by
the
bimetallist
program.
The
search
for
an
inter-
national
agreement
on a
ratio
between
gold
and
silver
had
been
generally
consigned
to
the
trash
heap
of
op-
timistic
theorizing.
McKinley
belonged
to
the
die-hard
band
of
hope.
He
did
not
believe
that
the
United
States
should
take
independent
action
by
legislating
for
the
unlimited
coinage
of
silver
at
the
old
ratio
of
sixteen
to
one,
but he
did
not
intend
to
alienate
sup-
port
by
discussing
the
question
during
his
preliminary
canvass.
The
compromise
of
bimetallism
had
raveled
out
in
the furious
strain
of dissension.
McKinley had
nothing
to
offer
but
threadbare
arguments
that
satisfied
neither
side,
but
silence
was
of
extreme
disservice
to
his
reputation.
The
candidate's
denial
of
the
legitimate
public
demand
for
enlightenment
on
his
views
lent
jus-
tification
to
the
onslaughts
of
the
opposition.
Its
press
rummaged
through
McKinley's
record
for
evidences
of
inconsistency.
He
was
cartooned
as
a
sphinx,
ridiculed
as
tongue-tied
and
dumb,
taunted
as a
sly
time-server
with
no
convictions
at
all.
McKinley's
mute
effacement
in
Canton
was
interpreted
as
unanswerable
proof
that
he
was
muzzled
by
Mark
Hanna.
The
approach
of
the
Republican
convention
in
June,
at
St.
Louis,
made
it
necessary
for
McKinley
to
submit
his
opinions,
and
in
conference
with
Hanna
and
other
advisers,
he
drafted
a
statement
on
the
cur-
rency.
It
contained
the
usual
pledge
for
sound
money,
with
silver
used
to
the
fullest
extent
consistent
with
the
maintenance
of
its
parity
with
gold.
While
extend-
ing
a
welcome
to
international
bimetallism,
McKin-
ley's
proposal
declared
that
it
was
meanwhile
the
plain
duty
of
the
United
States
to
maintain
our
pres-
ent
standard,
and
that
the
Republican
party
was
therefore
opposed
to
the
free
and
unlimited
coinage
of
silver.
Hanna
had
come
to
approve
McKinley's
evasiveness
because
of
its
favorable
effect
in
the
Far
West;
but,
arriving
early
at
St.
Louis
for
the
meetings
of
the
na-
tional
committee,
he
discovered
a
strong
sentiment
for
the
gold
standard
among
the
other
delegations.
While
he
was
busy
with
committee
affairs,
a
number
of
friends
met
in
his
room
to
consider
the
question
of
stiffening
McKinley's
statement.
Over
the
discussions,
as
menacing
as
an
explosive.
hung
the
bright
syllable
gold.
Tacitly
accepted
as
the
money
standard
of
the
United
States,
it
had
been
mentioned
in
previous
RepubUcan
platforms
only
in
relation
to
silver
and
paper.
The
little
group
at
St.
Louis at
last
ventured
to
insert
the
word
alone.
For
McKinley's
phrase,
to
maintain
our
present
stand-
ard,
was
substituted
the
statement
that
the
existing
gold
standard
should
be
preserved.
The
change
did
not
alter
the
meaning.
Everyone
perfectly
understood
what
our
present
standard
was,
and
the
silverite
leader.
Senator
Henry
M.
Teller
of
Colorado,
told
newspaper
correspondents
that
the
original
version
would
have
been
equally
unacceptable
to
the
silver-
mining
states;
but
to
sound-money
Republicans,
the
quibble
was
portentous.
Crisis
had
forced
them,
with
trepidation
and
high
resolve,
to
dare
to
speak
of
gold.
Hanna
expressed
his
approval,
and
McKinley
was
convinced
by
the
united
recommendation.
But
Hanna
artfully
concealed
his
hand
from
the
anti-McKinley
delegates.
He
intended
that
the
candidate
and
his
manager
should
appear
to
yield to
the
overwhelming
sentiment
of
the
convention.
By
conveying
to
eastern
leaders
like
Tom
Piatt
of
New
York
and
Cabot
Lodge
—the
junior
senator
from
Massachusetts-the
impres-
sion
that
he
was
still
reluctant
to
call
the
money
standard
by
name,
Hanna
incited
them
to
consolidate
the
delegations
who
were
in
favor
of
the
explicit
defi-
nition.
When
the
resolutions
committee
finally
pro-
duced
the
platform,
the
currency
plank
was
essentially
the
statement
that
McKinley
had
approved.
There
was
a
rush
to
claim
credit
for
the
fateful
monosyllable,
gold.
H.
H.
Kohlsaat,
who
was
a
late-comer
at
the
conferences,
insisted
that
he
alone
was
responsible.
Piatt and
Cabot
Lodge,
who
had
never
been
present
The
flag-draped
McKinley
home in
Canton.
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all,
were leading
contenders
for the honor.
Hanna
not
disilhision them.
The
McKinley delegations
the
South had
been
comfortably seated.
St.
Louis
plastered
with
McKinley
posters, and
waving
McKinley
banners.
Men with
McKinley
badges,
and
hatbands rested
in the
McKinley
lounges
f the
hotels,
and refreshed
themselves
with
McKin-
drinks
of
bourbon, lemon
juice, and
sugar.
Hanna
done
his
work
well.
He
was
satisfied to
remain
in
background.
A
break
with the Far
West
was
a
foregone conclu-
Anticipation marred
the
drama
of
the
scene
that
the
adoption of
the money
plank.
Silver
is,
think, the
Nation
commented, the
first
raw
metal
has
ever been
wept over.
Senator
Teller
in
pa-
periods
took farewell
of the
party
to
which
he
given
his
lifelong
devotion, and led
the
sad
proces-
of
delegates
from
the
convention
hall.
As
the
men
filed out, a
tall
Nebraska
reporter
and
ex-
came
striding
down
over
the desks
from
place in the
back
of
the
press stand.
William
Jen-
Bryan looked after
the
Republican
bolters with
gleam in
his
eye
and a
faint,
satisfied
smile; but the
of
the
mining
states
did not
jar the
enthusiasm of
convention's
proceedings,
nor
dim
Republican
in
the
future.
Glittering
refulgently
in
the
gold
seemed a
word
of
magic
power
to purge
party
of
inflationists and
make it
with
a new con-
the organization of
the
business
interests.
Thursday,
June
18,
when the
nominations
for the
Presidency
were
made
at
St. Louis, the
city
of
Can-
was
undecorated and
noiseless.
Bicyclists, pedaling
North Market
Street,
cast
curious
glances across
shaven, dewy
lawn,
brightened by
two
white
urns
over
with
flowers, and
by
circular
beds of
red
geraniums.
The
candidate's
house
was
like a
Christmas package with
important coils
f wire, which
directly
connected it
by
telegraph
and
telephone
with
the
convention
hall in
Louis. Reporters had taken
over
the
front porch,
the wicker armchairs and
splint rockers,
on
the
floor
and
steps,
and
perching
on
the
Privileged
friends
arrived,
and passed
inside.
group
of nervously
vivacious
ladies clustered
around
wife
and
mother in the parlor.
McKinley
was
seated
in
the
library, near the
telephone
in
the
company
of his
one-legged
Civil
War
General
Russell
Hastings,
and a
few
other
The
instruments
of the
Postal
Telegraph and
Union
companies
clicked
competitively
in the
hall, and
Mrs. McKinley's young
cousin, Sam
read off
the
bulletins that came over the
tele-
Now and then
McKinley
crossed
to the parlor
to
speak a cheerful word
to
his
wife or ask
her
twittering
entourage,
Are
you young
ladies
getting anxious
about this
affair?
To
the veteran Cincinnati editor,
Murat Halstead, his
calm,
grave
face
looked marvel-
ously like
Daniel
Webster, as
he
sat
in
the
revolving
chair
beside
his desk,
with
pad
and
pencil
in
hand.
The news
arrived
almost
simultaneously over the three
wires
that
Ohio had
been
reached in the roster
of
the
states,
and Ex-Governor
Joseph
B.
Foraker
was
mak-
ing
his way to
the platform. He was about
to
speak.
His
pronouncement of
McKinley's name had
thrown
the convention into
an uproar. The
telephone
was
silent
for
half
an
hour.
Stepping
over
to
pick up
the
receiver,
McKinley
was
amazed
to hear
a
distant
con-
fusion
of
cheers.
Others
followed
his
example, and
shared his
astonishment.
The circuit
in the
conven-
tion hall telephone
booth
had
been
left
open, and
McKinley had
actually
had the
extraordinary
expe-
rience
of
hearing
himself
acclaimed
six
hundred
miles
away. The
sound, Halstead
said,
was
like a storm at
sea with
wild,
fitful shrieks
of
wind.
It
was
hard
on
a
speaker,
McKinley remarked, to
be
held
up
that
way—
like stopping
a
race
horse in
full
career.
The
St.
Louis operator
came
back to
the
telephone. Foraker
was
trying
to
resume his
speech.
You seem to
have heard
the
name
of
my
candidate
before,
Sam Saxton
read
out.
Ah,
McKinley said,
that is
like
him.
He
knows
what
he is
doing, and is
all
right.
Mark
Hanna
and
the
governor
of
Ohio
were
embracing,
Sam
reported, and
another
delegate
was
wildly
fanning
Hanna's
head.
The
tension
in
the
parlor
relaxed in
smiles
of
amusement.
Suddenly, the
bulletin
came,
Alabama, 18 for
McKinley. The
gentlemen
in the
library grabbed
their
tally sheets.
McKinley
sat
quietly keeping
score
at
his desk. The
roster
of
the
states
rushed on.
The
figures
mounted
fast.
Quick
calculation soon
showed
that
Ohio's forty-six
certain
votes
would
settle
the
nomination
on
the
first
ballot.
Before
they
were
re-
ported,
one
of
the
men
threw
down his
pencil, and
offered his
congratulations.
McKinley went to
the
parlor
and
kissed his
wife and
then his
mother, as he
told them
that Ohio
had
given him
the
presidential
nomination.
While he
bent above
them in
a
tender
tableau
that
moved
some
ladies
to
tears, a
clang
reverberated
from
the
city
hall tower
and
hell broke
loose in
Canton.
Gongs
and bells,
cannon
and guns
and
firecrackers,
tin
horns and
whistles, the
music
of
the
bands,
and
the
citizens'
roars
of
triumph were
blended in
a
single,
deafening,
discordant
din. Flags
were
thrown to
the
breeze,
bunting
smothered
the
buildings.
Carriages,
horsemen,
and
bicyclists
whirled
up
North
Market
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Delegations
came to
Canton by the dozens. They
rarely departed
without a
speech,
and an
informal
reception on
the porch steps.
Street, followed by a
racing crowd on
foot.
Sam
Saxton
was calling
for
Central,
but the
announcements
could
not be
heard
in
the din of
victory. The
crowd
made
a
rush
to the front
door.
McKinley's companions
fled.
You have my sympathy,
General
Hastings dryly
remarked,
as
he
hobbled out
the
back way. Thousands
of
people
flung
themselves
into the house,
with
shrieks
of
congiatulations
and God
bless
you,
and the
ladies
of the
community, carried
away by
excitement, danced
in
circles around
the
Major,
as McKinley
was
gener-
ally
known,
from
his brevet
rank in
the
Civil War.
Long before
the
arrival of
the
band and
the
vet-
erans, who had
formed in
tire public square
according
to
the
program,
McKinley
was
obliged
to
mount
a
chair
on
the front
porch and
respond to the calls of
the
multitude
on
the
lawn
and
street. He
made
another
speech
when
the
parade arrived. He passed through
the
kitchen
to
address a
deputation
from
Alliance,
which
stormed
the
back
door.
A
special train
brought
a
monster
delegation
from Massillon. As
twilight
fell,
four thousand
arrived
from
Akron.
Villagers
poured
in
from
Carrollton,
Osnaburg,
and
Minerva,
and at
ten
o'clock
the
proud citizens
of
Niles,
McKinley's
birthplace,
paid their
respects. Between five o'clock
and
midnight
more
than fifty thousand people heard
McKinley
speak,
and
it was claimed
that
he
shook
hands
with
most
of
them.
When the
Major
at last
retired to rest, the
pande-
monium in
Canton
was
unabated. An
arc
light
on
McKinley's
lawn
illuminated
a
scene
of
devastation.
The
grass
was trampled.
The iron
fence
was
broken.
Shrubbery,
geranium
beds,
and
rosebushes lay in
ruins. Strewn across
the
wreckage, a
dozen rifled purses
bore witness
that
pickpockets,
as
well
as
honest
citi-
zens,
had
found
cause
for
rejoicing
in Canton's
rise
to
national
importance.
McKinley
had
received
66ii/4
votes in the
final bal-
lot, while Speaker
Thomas Reed of
Maine, his
nearest
competitor,
had
8414.
A
motion
to
nominate
by
acclamation was
quickly carried,
and
the
delegates
wound up
their
proceedings
by
nominating
Garret
A.
Hobart
of New
Jersey
for the
Vice
Presidency.
He
was
a rich
corporation
lawyer and
businessman,
scarcely
known
to
the
country, but
influential in
the
Republi-
can
party in
his state; and
he had been
Mark
Hanna's
choice
for
the
nomination.
Hanna
had
carried every-
thing
before him.
He
had
managed
a
political canvass
as
though
it were a
business
enterprise. His
astound-
ing success
was
saluted
by
the
cheers of
the
convention,
and
by
his selection as
chairman
of the
national
com-
mittee. Hanna was
a
new
wonder in the
political fir-
mament—the
boss of
the
Republican bosses.
When Hanna
presently ran down
from
Cleveland
to
Canton, he
had
a
glimpse
of the
turmoil
with
which
McKinley
was
surrounded.
The
candidate
was
making
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every day. He
greeted
parading workers
from
protected
industries
of Ohio
and adjacent states.
beamed on the
big
contingent from the new
tin-
mill
at
his
birthplace, with its
banner, From
to
the
White
House. To all
and sundry, in
and friendly
greetings,
McKinley appeared
as
tariff
candidate, standing
on a
tariff
platform.
His
to
good
money
and
full
dollars
were
as
and
indefinite
as
though
the
admission
of
the
ld standard
had
never been
written into the
Repub-
platform.
The
declaration had produced
an unfavorable
reac-
in
many
parts
of
the Middle West, and
Hanna's
led
him to
conclude
that he
was
going to
have
a
on his hands
in
the
Mississippi Valley.
He
in-
to
get his
work
of
education on the
money ques-
started
before
his
summer
holiday;
but
he did not
forward
to
a difficult campaign.
For
a
short
time
the St. Louis
convention,
the
Republican
nom-
seemed tantamount to
election.
As
the
Democratic
convention gathered in
Chicago
July,
it
did not
seem
a
formidable assemblage.
The
on
the money
question had
cut deep.
As the
had disintegrated, it
had
been
infiltrated with
sentiment.
In many parts
of
the
South and
by
a
process
of
burrowing from
within,
the
third
had
taken over the Democratic
organization,
common cause with its
candidates. The
infla-
were expected to
wrest control
of
the
conven-
from
the
conservative elements; but,
though they
numerically
dominant, they had no
outstanding
In
the
headlines
of
the
city
press
and
in
the
of
political
sages,
no
importance
was
to
the youthful
ex-congressman, recently
as
a
lecturer
and
newspaper
writer,
who
was
a
member of
a
contesting delegation
from
Nebraska.
Jennings
Bryan was
scarcely
known
to
the
His fame lay
in
the
small
communities and
scat-
farms
of
the West
and
South.
He had traveled
preaching
free
silver; and he
had also taken an
part
in an
organization
of silver
Democrats, who
to
capture
the
party's
national convention.
political
ideas
were
strongly
tinctured with
tenets.
Bryan, demagogue
and evangelist,
was
natural
leader.
As
soon
as the
Nebraska
contestants
were
seated
at
Bryan
claimed and
obtained
a
place
on
resolutions
committee, for
which
his delegation
favored him.
The
Democratic platform
of
1896
a
new
note
in
the
pronouncements
of
the
major
parties
of
the
United
States.
It was a
declaration
made on
behalf of the
masses of
the people. The
money
plank stood
first.
It
uncompromisingly de-
manded
the free
and
unlimited
coinage of
both
silver
and gold at the
ratio
of sixteen
to
one,
without wait-
ing for the
consent
of
any other nation.
The platform
condemned governmental dealing with
banking
syn-
dicates,
to
their profit. It
denounced
the protective
tariff as
a
prolific breeder
of
trusts. It
demanded
stricter federal control
of
trusts
and
railroads, specify-
ing
the
enlargement of the powers
of
the Interstate
Commerce
Commission
to protect
the people
from
robbery
and
oppression.
Its
denunciation
of
arbitrary
federal interference in
local affairs
was
an attack on
President
Cleveland's
action in
the
Pullman
strike.
Its
censure
of
government
by
injunction
in
labor
disputes
and the recommendation
of
an
income tax de-
fied
the
Supreme Court and
impugned its
judgment,
with a
plain
hint that
the
problem might be
solved
by
packing the
Court
in future.
After
the platform was
reported,
Bryan arose to ad-
dress the
Democratic
convention.
He
said nothing
new,
nothing that he had not said
hundreds
of
times
before.
He
had
twice employed
in
public
speeches
the
very
rhetorical
figure with
which
he
concluded
at Chicago:
You
shall not
press
down
upon
the
brow of
labor
this
crown
of
thorns;
you
shall not
crucify
mankind
upon
a
cross of
gold.
The
Republican
press
took what
com-
fort
it
could from
the
fact
that the
Democrats were
stampeded by a
chestnut.
Bryan's
impassioned pe-
riods
had electrified
the
convention, and made
him its
presidential
candidate.
The
inflationists
had
found their leader.
The
dissen-
sion
over the currency
flamed
into
open
conflict in
the
campaign
of
1896.
It
was
a sectional
conflict,
the
debtor
farmers
of
the
West
against the
eastern mag-
nates.
It was
a
class conflict,
the crusade
of the prole-
tariat against
the entrenchments
of
privilege.
The
scattered
and
impotent forces
of
protest
united to as-
sail
the
existing economic
system and
the
dominance
of
the
money power.
To
Bryan's
standard
flocked
Populists and
Silver
Republicans,
who
soon
held
con-
ventions
to
endorse
the
Democratic
nominee.
He en-
listed
farmers
and
workingmen,
and all the
radicals,
chronic
objectors,
bankrupts,
and
visionaries to
whom
he
was an
inspired
prophet.
But his
clarion voice
reached a
far
wider
audience.
It rang
across
a
country
weary of
hard
times
with the
confident
promise
of
plentiful
money;
and,
when
Bryan
called on
Amer-
icans
to
renew
their
allegiance
to
the
rights
of
the
common
man,
he
awakened
an
ancient
faith
and
a
desire
for social
justice.
Like
the
old
slavery
issue, the
moral cause
of
Bryan's
campaign
shattered the
bonds
of
party
loyalty.
Bryan was
of service
to
his
country
in
laying
bare
the abuses
of
concentrated
wealth
and its
control
of
government. He
touched
the
laggard
conscience
of
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America, and
disturbed
its complacent
absorption
in
material
success.
But
over
his crusade,
belittling
its
purpose
and
confusing its
significance, floated the
banner
of
fiat
money.
Bryan
knew
nothing of econom-
ics.
He
preached
free
silver
as
he
might
have preached
Christ
crucified, the
hope
of
man's
salvation.
The in-
flationists
surpassed
the
high
tariff
advocates
in
pro-
vincial
exclusiveness
of
outlook,
for they proposed
that
a
great
commercial
nation
should
be
isolated
and
self-
sufficient in
its
money
system.
They were
heedless of
the country's
financial
structure,
and indifferent
to
for-
eign
trade.
Their
most
reckless
demand
was
that the
technical
question
of the
currency, understood
only
by
financial
experts,
should be
settled at
the
polls.
With
the
national
solvency at the mercy of
the
sover-
eign
and
uninformed
people, the
campaign of
1896
became a
grandiose
farce—
democracy
reduced
to
an
absurdity.
Bryan's
conservative
contemporaries
were
shocked
by his
folly. They
were
also
appalled
by the
strength
of his cause.
In
July,
the
masses seemed spellbound.
Had the
election
been held
in
the
first
weeks
after
Bryan's Chicago
speech,
the Democrats would have
carried
the
country.
It
does
not
now
appear
that
the
United
States
was
in imminent
jeopardy,
or that the
wildest
measures
of
inflation
could have long availed
to
arrest
its progress
and
stamp out
its
production.
But,
in
1896,
Republicans and Gold
Democrats
be-
lieved that they
faced a
crisis more serious than
that
of the
Civil War.
This was
the rise of bankruptcy,
nihilism,
anarchy.
This was
red revolution.
The
Republican leaders
rallied
to meet the chal-
lenge and
man the
barricades. Hanna
gave up
his
holi-
day
and
began
a summer of hard
work,
directing
campaign headquarters established in New York
and
Chicago. The
old lines would hold
in the
East,
but
Republican morale
sank dangerously
low
in midsum-
mer.
The
firm
ground
of
the tariff
had been
swept
from
under McKinley's
feet. The
champion
of protec-
tion appeared
a feeble
defender
of the
gold
standard—
a candidate
as
illogical,
the
Nation
had observed,
as
a Methodist
preacher would be
in an
election for
Pope
of Rome. Bryan
began
a
tremendous
campaign,
tak-
ing the Middle
West
by
storm.
The
collapse
of
Republican
confidence
was
evident
in
Ohio,
but
McKinley
was
tranquil. He benignly
received
his many visitors, and with his buoyant
spirit
sustained Hanna
and the
other
campaign
managers.
McKinley's
attitude
was like that of a
parson
who
sees
his congregation carried away
by
the
excitement
of a camp
meeting. He deplored the
hysteria,
but felt
sure
that
his
flock
would soon be back in
the
old pews.
The common people,
he
told
his
friends, would put
the
matter
right. It was only necessary to make them
understand
the principles. Hanna
was
preparing
an
educational
program
of unexampled extent and
thor-
oughness.
While Bryan's eloquence was the greatest
single
asset of the Democrats, he
was
not
conducting
a
one-
man campaign. In
challenging
the interests, the
transformed party had
not
antagonized the mining
magnates, and
it
was supplied
with
funds to spread
the
gospel
of
silver.
Hanna's
plans
for
counterpropa-
ganda would
be
costly beyond the resources
on which
he
could
ordinarily
rely;
and
while
his organization
was forming he undertook
to
shake
down the
New
York
financiers,
who
had
most at stake
in
the election.
Bryan's
persuasive
eloquence
stirred up
a
country
weary
of
hard times.
He
preached
free
silver as
he
might
have preached
Christ
crucified.
ILLUSTRATED
FOR
AMERICAN
HeRITACE BY ARTHUR
SHILSTONZ
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Wall
Street was apathetic, cold to
McKinley,
and un-
acquainted with
his
manager. Hanna's
first
efforts
met
with rebuff
and
discouragement.
Bryan
had
succeeded,
John
Hay wrote
Henry Adams
in
September, in
scar-
ing
the Gold
bugs out of their five wits; if he had
scared them a little,
they would
have
come
down hand-
some
to
Hanna.
But
he
has
scared them so blue that
they
think
they
had better
keep what
they
have got left
in
their
pockets
against
the evil clay. In
the end,
Hanna's
salesmanship prevailed. The
financiers paid
up, and lent
Hanna
their
assistance
in
organizing
a
systematic collection. Banks were regularly
assessed
for
subscriptions,
and
corporations
and life insurance
companies
were induced
to
make
liberal contributions.
A
campaign
fund
of
more
than
three
and
a
half mil-
lion
dollars—
unprecedented
at
that time—
was
dis-
bursed
by
the Republican National
Committee.
The
greater part of the
money
came from
New
York
and
its
vicinity,
and it
was
largely
expended
in
the
doubtful
states
of
the
AVest.
With
it
Hanna
undertook
to
counteract
the
emo-
tional
fascination
of
free
silver
and
cheap money
by
instructing
hundreds of thousands
of
plain people
in
the
meaning
of the
terms.
The committee reached
out
to work
with rural
newspapers
and schoolhouse
meetings. The country
was
invaded by
an
army
of
paid speakers, and
deluged
with
tons
of
literature,
printed in
a
dozen
languages.
More than
a
million
copies
were distributed of a single
pamphlet, William
Allen White's
mocking
anti-Populist
tract, What's
the
Matter
with
Kansas? Simple
economic lessons
stressed
the
disadvantage of
inflation
to
people
of
limited
means—
to
those
dependent
on
pensions,
to
holders
of
insurance
policies
and depositors
in
savings
banks,
to
all
who
owned
a bit
of property, or
were
trying
to
save
something
for
their
old age or
for
their children.
In
persuasive presentation
and efficient organization, the
educational
campaign
was
proof
of Hanna's genius
for
political
management.
Hanna
was not a
boastful
man.
He
fully acknowl-
edged the contribution of
McKinley's
strong
and
noble personality
to
the
campaign. McKinley's
con-
ception
of his
candidacy
was
so
passive
that
he
at first
gave the impression of
intending
to
make
no
campaign
at
all. He had decided
to
stay
at
home and address
only
the
people who
cared
to
visit him there. Before
his nomination,
he
had
made two speaking
engage-
ments, both nonpolitical
in
character,
requiring his
presence in
July
at the Cleveland
Centennial celebra-
tion and
at
Mount Union College. Except
for three
days'
absence
to
keep
these appointments
and one week-
end of rest
in
August, McKinley
remained
in
Canton
from the
date
of his nomination
until
the election,
available
at
all
hours
to
the public
on every day
but
Sunday.
McKinley
was no match for his
younger opponent in
dramatic
presence and
oratorical
power, and he
refused,
as he told
Dawes,
to enter the
competition.
He
may
have
been influenced
by the example
set
by Ben-
jamin
Harrison
in
his second
and
losing
campaign in
1892,
but the
idea of the front porch campaign
seems
to
have been
a
natural oiugrowth
of the many
groups that visited
Canton.
McKinley
preferred
the
attitude of responding to the
demands
of his friends,
of
desiring election
without going
to seek
it.
He
was so
reluctant
to
stimulate
interest in
his
campaign
that
he
expressed
himself
as averse to
anything
like
an
effort
41
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Puck,
OCTOBER 2
1,
1
896;
CULVER
SERVICE
^o^[.^
The
more
he
talks,
the more
McKinley
weighs.
The
cover
of
Puck
ridiculed
Bryan
for
his
demagoguery.
being
made to
bring
crowds
here.
The
Republican
National
Committee was
active,
nevertheless, in
drum-
ming
up
delegations,
and
the
railroads
were
glad
to
co-operate.
Low
excursion
rates from
all
parts of
the
country
made
the
trip
to
Canton,
as
the
free-silver
Cleveland
Plai7i
Dealer disgustedly
remarked,
cheaper
than
staying at
home.
For
the eager
Republican
pil-
grims,
the journey
combined
the
excitement of a
polit-
ical
demonstration
with
the
pleasure of
an
outing.
Decked
in
campaign
badges,
caps,
and neckties,
they
tumbled
off
the
trains
into
the
welcoming arms
of
Canton.
Committees
of
greeters
were
on
hand
at
the
depot,
with
the
well-mounted
and
nattily
uniformed
squads
of
the troop
that
Canton
had
organized for
escort
duty. The
parades
then
formed
around
their
bands
and
banners,
and
guided by
the
clattering
horse-
men,
wound
through
a
town
ablaze with red,
white,
and blue, and
noisy
with
the
cheers
of the
citizens on
the
curbstones.
At the
foot
of
North
Market Street
the
delegations
passed
beneath
the
ornate plaster
structure
of
the
McKinley arch,
surmounted by
the
candidate's
portrait, and
at
last
broke
ranks to
crowd onto the
McKinley lawn.
There
was a
breathless
moment
when the
handle
of
the door
turned,
and
a
blast
of
cheers when
McKinley
appeared
on
the
front
porch.
The
spokesman stepped
forward to
deliver an
address
in
which
expressions
of
allegiance to
the
candidate and
to
Republican prin-
ciples were
blended
with
complimentary
allusions
to
the
community or
organization
or
industry
represented
by
the group.
McKinley
listened
with
rapt
attention.
He
would
stand,
said Captain
Harry
Frease
of
the
Canton troop, like a
child
looking
at
Santa
Claus,
until
the speech
was
finished.
Then,
mounting a chair,
McKinley talked to
the people. He bade
them
welcome
to his
home,
and
thanked
them
for
the
honor
of
their
call. He
said
a
few
words on
the
campaign issues,
adapting the
discussion to suit
the
special
interests
of
his
audience.
In conclusion, he
expressed a
desire to
shake
the
hand of
each and every
one,
and
held
an in-
formal
reception on the
porch
steps.
Warmed
by
McKinley's
cordiality and
impressed by
his
sincerity, the
excursionists
carried to
all
parts
of
the
country
enthusiastic
reports of
the
Republican
candidate.
They had
been
right close to
him, they
had
shaken
his hand.
They had seen
him in
his
setting,
and
it was all
exactly
right— the
friendly
town;
the
neat,
unpretentious
house and
the
porch
hung with
trum-
pet
vines;
and
the
First
Methodist Church
where
Mc-
Kinley
worshiped with
his mother
every
Sunday.
Many
of
the visitors saw
the dear
old
mother, sitting
beside
her son or
rocking
on her
own
front
porch.
Many
saw
and
stared at
the
invalid wife.
The curiosity
about
Ida
McKinley
was
so
intense
that she
was
sometimes
sent to
stay on
a
nearby farm,
but
it does
not
appear
that
these
absences
were
frequent. Canton
talked, in
any case,
regaling the
trippers
with tales of
Mrs.
Mc-
Kinley's
queer
ways
and her
husband's
selfless devo-
tion.
In
his
campaign speeches,
McKinley made no
mis-
takes. He could
ill have
afforded to
do
so.
A
care-
less word
or
misplaced
allusion
would
not
only
have
alienated
the
prideful
deputation on
the
lawn,
but
would
have
been
spread before
the
newspaper
readers
of the
country.
Though
McKinley's addresses
seemed
unstudied and
spontaneous,
they
had
been
carefully
prepared.
Precautions
were also
taken to
avoid ex-
tempore
indiscretions
on
the
part of
the
spokesmen.
They
were required
to send
in
advance a
copy
of
their
intended
remarks,
which
McKinley
approved
and
oc-
casionally
edited.
McKinley was
obliged
to
discuss the
financial
ques-
tion
every
day,
but he
dexterously
kept
the
tariff to
the
fore
by
means of
lightning
transitions,
which
at
first were
seriously
disquieting
to
his critics.
He
slipped
smoothly
from
sound
money
to high
wages,
from good
dollars
to
good
times,
from
free
silver to
free
trade, from
open
mints to
open
mills.
At the
end
of
July,
in
addressing the
McKinley
and
Ho-
bart
Club of
Knoxville,
Pennsylvania,
the
candidate
made
some
remarks
that
excited
great
attention.
That
which
we
call
money,
my
fellow
citizens,
and with
42
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which vahies are measured and settlements made, must
be as
true
as
the bushel
which measures the grain
of
the
farmer,
and
as
honest
as the
hours
of labor
which
the
man
who
toils
is
recjuired
to
give. This was
merely
a
good
sample of
the
kind of oratory
with
which
McKinley
charmed
rural
and
labor audiences;
but he
had
more
to
say. Our
currency
today is
good—
all of
it
as
good
as
gold—and it is the unfaltering
deter-
mination
of
the
Republican
Party
to
so
keep
and
maintain it forever.
At last, the friends of the
honest dollar
had
cause
for relief and rejoicing.
For the first time, the
candi-
date had uttered the word
gold.
He pronounced it,
the Nation
said,
in a somewhat
furtive
way,
.
. .
hastening
to
take a
good
pull
at
the
tariff
to
steady
his
nerves.
As August passed, the
Nation and
the
big Demo-
cratic
dailies,
which
were
supporting McKinley
only
because
of a
still
stronger
antipathy
to
Bryan,
began
to look with increasing favor on the
Republican candi-
date.
They
had
confidently
expected
a
fumbling
and
mediocre
campaign. They
were astonished
by
the
versatility
and
political
sagacity
of the front-porch
speeches.
McKinley's
remarks
on the currency grew
progressively pointed and emphatic,
and
with the pub-
lication that
month
of
his
letter
of
acceptance, all
doubts
were set
at
rest.
The
money
question
was
placed
foremost, and
presented
in a lucid and
incisive
discus-
sion that silenced the
criticisms
of
McKinley's
wob-
bliness
and
mental
incapacity.
A
clear and
direct
issue
had
been presented
to
the
American
people, McKinley
wrote,
and upon its right
settlement
largely
rested
the
financial
honor
and
pros-
perity of the
country.
The mere
declaration
for the
free coinage of silver involved such grave
peril
to the
nation's business and
credit that conservative men
everywhere
were
breaking
away
from
their
old
party
associations
and uniting with
other
patriotic citizens
in
protest.
McKinley cautioned his countrymen against
misleading
phrases
and false
theories. Free silver
would
not
mean
that
silver
dollars
would
be
freer
to
the
many.
It
would mean
the
free
use of
the United States
mints for
the few who
were owners of
silver
bullion.
They
would receive
a dollar
for fifty-three
cents' worth
of
bullion, and other
people would
be
required
to re-
ceive
it
as a full
dollar
in payment
for
their
labor
and
products. The
silver
dollars already in use had
been
coined
by
the
government—not
for private
account
or
gain—and the government
had
agreed to
maintain
their value
at
a parity
with gold.
This at times had
been
accomplished with peril
to the
public
credit.
The
Sherman law had failed
to
realize
the expectation
that
it would advance the bullion value of silver.
Under coinage at
sixteen
to
one, the government
Harper's
Weekly,
Ji'NE 6,
1R96;
CULVER SERVICE
>A
McKinley,
commonly
called
the
Major,
was at
first
ac-
cused
of
ambiguity on
the problem
of
sound
money.
would have neither
the obligation nor
the power to
maintain
the
parity.
The nation
would
be
driven
to
a
silver
basis, with
resultant
reduction
of
property
values,
financial
loss
and damage to
commerce,
impair-
ment of contractual
obligations,
further
impoverish-
ment
of
laborers and
producers,
and
business
panic
of
unparalleled
severity.
Until the ratio between
the
two
metals
was
fixed
by
international
agreement,
it
was
the
plain duty
of
the
United States
to
maintain
the
gold
standard.
McKinley's
extensive
dissertation
on the currency
question
was
marked throughout
by
composure
and moderation of
tone. He said that money should be
free
from
speculation and
fluctuation, and ought never
to
be
made the
subject
of
partisan
contention. He also
observed that
it was
a
cause for
painful regret that
an
effort
was
being
made
by
the
Democratic party and
its
allies
to
divide the
country into classes and
create
distinctions
that did
not exist and
were repugnant to
the
American
form
of
government. These appeals
to
passion and prejudice
were in the
highest degree repre-
hensible. They were
opposed to
the
national
instinct
and
interest, and
should be resisted
by
every citi-
zen. Having
administered a
dignified
reinike
to
the
Bryanites, McKinley passed
on to
a
long
discussion
of
another
issue of
supreme
importance, the
tariff. He
examined
the
defects
of
the
unpopular
Democratic
tariff
of
1894
and charged
to
its
operation all the
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miseries of
the
depression.
It
was
mere
pretense,
he
said,
to
attribute
the
hard
times to
the gold
standard.
Good
money
never
made
times
hard.
It was
not
an
increase
in
the
vokime
of money
that
\vas
needed,
but
an
increase in
the
volume of
business.
A
wise protec-
tion
policy
had
lost
none
of
its
virtue
and
importance.
The
enactment of a
new
tariff
law
would be
the first
duty
of
the
Republican
party, if
restored to
power
in
the
autumn.
The
concluding
paragraphs of the
document
pledged
the
promotion of a
spirit
of
fraternal regard
between
the
North
and
South.
The
fervor of
McKinley's
ex-
pressions
attracted
attention
to these
passages,
but
the
predominant
interest
of
the
letter lay in
its
treatment
of the
currency, and
it
vtbs
scarcely
noticed
that
the
writer had
repeatedly
implied
that the
issue
was
transi-
ent and
subsidiai7. In tlie
hours he had
snatched for
composing
the paper
in
his
beleaguered house,
McKin-
ley
had
accomplished
a
considerable
political
feat.
He
had
eminently
satisfied the
sound-money
men,
from
goldbugs to
bimetallists,
while firmly
retaining
his
status
as
a
tariff candidate.
McKinley's
prestige steadily
mounted after the
pub-
lication
of his letter
of acceptance.
The
Republi-
can
National
Committee
distributed
hundreds of
thou-
sands of
copies.
Good money
never
made times
hard
became a
popular
campaign slogan. It
was
October
before
Hanna's
organization
proved its
effectiveness,
but Canton
was
engulfed
weeks
earlier by
the
tide
that rolled
toward
McKinley.
The
correspondent of the
Cleveland
Plairi
Dealer,
accustomed
to
scoff at the cut-rate
excursions,
capitu-
lated on
September
19.
The
opening
of
the floodgates,
he
telegraphed
his
newspaper,
had
swept
Canton off
its feet.
That
day,
McKinley
gave a
continuous per-
formance,
making
nine
addresses,
shaking hands with
thousands. The
delegations formed a
solid,
slowly
moving
procession—western
railroad men,
laborers
from
the
Carnegie
furnaces at
Pittsburgh, Hungarian-
Americans from
Cleveland,
hardware
men,
commercial
travelers,
farmers'
associations.
The
Republican Na-
tional
Committee
had
organized the railroad
contin-
gent, which
arrived
in
ten
special trains from
Chicago,
but
the Plain
Dealer
man
admitted that the enthusi-
asm was
genuine. No one
who saw
these crowds of
sturdy citizens, he
said,
could
fail
to
be impressed
with
the
blind
faith that the
^\•zge
earners
had
been
taught to
place in
McKinley.
Every week that
followed
the
formal opening
of
the
Ohio campaign
saw
a
greater
invasion.
On the last
Saturday
in
September,
special
trains
steamed
in
from morning until night,
bringing
over
twenty
thousand people,
who
represented thirty-
odd
cities and towns
in
half
a
dozen states. McKinley
addressed
eleven gatherings,
some
of
which
comprised
two, three, and even
six
delegations.
A week
later,
he
made
sixteen speeches in
one
day to
crowds
that were
estimated
at
thirty
thousand.
For eight weeks,
every
day but
Sunday
was
circus
day
in Canton.
The quiet Buckeye
community
had
never
dreamed of
such
delirious excitement.
Past
the
dazzled
eyes of
the citizens flashed
flags
and
banners,
McKinley
and Hobart
umbrellas,
tin
canes and
horns,
tin plumes
and
streamers, glass
canes,
glass
lilies with
McKinley's
portrait,
badges
of
raw
wool, gold badges,
gold neckties, gold
hatbands,
sprigs
of
goldenrod,
gold-
trimmed bicycles.
The
downtown
streets were
glutted
with parades
waiting their turn, and the
neighbor-
hood
of the
McKinley house was black
with
crowds as
thick
as
flies
around
a railroad pie stand.
Like
an
army that does
not advance
to meet
the
enemy, McKinley had brought
destruction
to
his
own
borders.
The front porch
was
in a state of
dilapidation.
The slender
posts
had
been so
weakened
by
the grasp
and pressure
of
the crowds
that
the
roof
was in
immi-
nent
danger
of
tumbling on
the
Major's head.
The
demolished
fence and
grape
arbor had
been
picked
clean by
souvenir-hunters.
The
once-green lawn
had
been trampled to a brown
plain
of
earth, on
which
farmers' families picnicked while they
waited
for
the
speeches.
In
the
rains of
early
autumn,
it
became a
lake
of
mud,
and North Market
Street
had
a
brief
in-
terval
of respite, while the
meetings
adjourned
to
Can-
ton's
gloomy
public hall, the
Tabernacle.
The
McKinley
house
was
filled with
a
monstrous
clutter of
gifts, and the debris
that the retiring delega-
tions left in
their
wake. The
bunches of
flowers faded.
Cheese
and butter and
watermelons
could
be
eaten.
Badges
and glass
canes made
acceptable
presents
to
children.
A place
was
undoubtedly found for
a
marble
bust of
McKinley,
a
bouquet of
artificial flowers made
by a
bedridden
Cleveland lady, a cane of weldless cold-
drawn steel
tubing,
a
miniature
gold
reproduction
of
a
one-hundred-poimd
steel
rail, and
a
gavel
formed
from a log
of the cabin
occupied
by
Lincoln
at Salem,
Illinois. But it
is
difficult to
imagine
where
the
McKin-
leys
put
the finely
polished stump of
a
tree from
Ten-
nessee, the
largest
plate
of
galvanized
iron ever
rolled
in
the
United
States, the equally
record-breaking sheet
of
bright
tin, or the strip
of
jointed
tin, sixty
feet
long,
embellished
with
the names of the
candidates.
Live
American eagles
were
the
most
inconvenient remem-
brances
of
all, and
McKinley made haste to present
them to the
city
of
Canton, as they
were
received. Five
fine
specimens, christened
Major,
McKinley,
Presi-
dent,
Hobart, and
Hanna, were
lodged
near
the
wolves
in the pavilion in
Nimisilla Park.
The
national
excitement mounted
as
election
day
44
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drew
near. The
Democrats
had
the Solid South.
They
had
a nearly
solid Far West. Labor
organizations and
labor
journals were
all
vociferous for
free
silver.
Bryan's fiei y
and
aggressive
campaign
seemed
to
have
infused his cause with a sinister vitality.
In
tones
sharp with alarm, great Democratic and
independent
newspapers
defied
the
forces
of
insolvency and ruin.
Preachers
fulminated against Bryan
from
their pul-
pits. A
trainload
of
Union
officers
aroused the
old sol-
diers
of
the
'West
with
bands,
cannon,
rockets, and
speeches
for Comrade
McKinley.
Monster
torchlight
parades
wound through the streets of the
cities,
with
captains
of
finance
and industry marching in
line.
For
a few days, business
almost came to
a
standstill.
Banks
refused
to
make loans.
Orders
to
factories
were subject
to
cancellation. Workers
were
warned
that
their
wages
and
even
their jobs
were contingent
on
the outcome
of the election. With fear
in
their hearts, sound-money
men cast
their votes on November
3,
and
waited in
suspense for
the returns.
The
time for
suspense
had ended weeks
before. The
great American
middle
class had
awakened
from
a
summer's
dream
of
the
glories
of
free
silver.
Some
men
had been
persuaded
by
argument,
some
by
the
coer-
cion
of
their employers.
Others had
been
estranged
by
the
increasingly radical tone of
Bryan's
speeches,
and
disillusioned by
the knowledge
that
this
demagogue
was
backed
by the magnates
of
the
silver
mines. The
price of wheat
soared,
nullifying
Bryan's arguments
to
the farmers. The Gold Democrats,
conservative mem-
bers
of the
party
who
had nominated
their
own
can-
didates, concluded
in large
numbers
to
gag
at
the tariff
and vote for
McKinley.
Late
on
election day,
the news-
paper bulletins began
to
flaunt
the
tidings of
Republi-
can
success. Middle
western
and border
states
of the
South
tumbled
into
the
gold
column. At
midnight
it
was
known
that,
by
a goodly majority
in the electoral
college and a popular
vote
larger
than
that
received
by
any
candidate since Grant,
William McKinley
had
been elected President
of
the
United
States.
Late
that
night,
H.
H. Kohlsaat
made
a telephone
call
^
to
Canton
from
his office
at
the
Chicago
Times-
Herald,
which
had given
valuable
support
to
the
Re-
publican
candidate. He
was finally
connected
witli
Mother McKinley's house,
and
spoke with
her grand-
son,
James.
After some delay,
James
came back to
re-
port
that the newly
elected President
was in his
mother's room.
She
was kneeling
beside
her bed,
James
shouted
over
the
long-distance
wire,
with
one
arm
around
Uncle
Will
and
the
other
around Aunt
Ida.
All
that
James
could
hear
was Oh, God,
keep
him
humble, and
that,
apparently,
was
all that Mr.
Kohlsaat
got
for
his
telephone
call.
45
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THE
ELIZABETHANS
AND
AMERICA:
PART V
m
€mW
America
acted deeply
on
the
Elizabethan
English
imagination^
working its magic
in
the
tJiinds
of
poets
and
men
of
science
By A. L.
ROWSE
'
uring
the reign
of
Elizabeth
I,
as
the
in-
terest
in
and
knowledge
of
America
gath-
ered
momentum,
so their
reverberation
in
literature
and the
arts
became
louder,
more
frequent,
and
more varied.
On the
one
hand, there
were
the
writings
and
reports
of those
who
had been
there,
as collected
by Hakluyt
and
Purchas;
the
books
written
by
people
like
Captain
Smith
and Morton
and
Strachey;
the
histories
and
journals
of
Bradford
and
Winthrop;
the
numerous
tracts
and
sermons devoted
to
the
subject.
On the
other,
there
is
the
reflection
of
America in
the
mirror
of
the
imagination,
in
the
po-
etry
and
prose
of Spenser
and
Sidney,
Raleigh
and
Chapman,
Shakespeare
and
Drayton,
Bacon
and
Donne.
Sometimes
these
things
run
into
one another:
in the
case of Raleigh,
for
example,
who
always
strad-
dles
all fences. But
it is
fascinating
to observe how
not
only the
content
of
the
voyagers'
accounts
but
their
very
phrases
will
appear in
the
lines
of the
poets; how
the words
of Raleigh's
sea
captain.
Barlow,
take
wing
in the
verse
of his
master
or reappear
in
Drayton's
ode To
the
Virginian
Voyage, or
how
Strachey's
account
of
the
hurricane
off
Bermuda
is
echoed
in
The
Tempest.
The
transition
from the factual
world
of
transla-
tions
and
reports
to
the
realm
of
the
imagination
may
be seen first
in
the
circle
of Philip
Sidney,
to
whom
Hakluyt
dedicated
his
Divers
Voyages.
When
we read
Sidney's
Arcadia,
whose
author
was
so
much
interested
in
America
and
several
times thought
of
coming
here,
we recognize
the atmosphere
of the
voyages.
It
begins
with a
shipwreck,
with
the wrack
floating
in
a sea
of
very rich
things and
many
chests
which
might
promise
no less.
The
capture
of prizes
dominates
the
first
chap-
Copyright
©
1959
by A. L. Rowse
ters,
with
the
arrival
of Musidorus
in
a
strange
country,
having
lost
his
friend
Pyrocles,
who
subsequently
turns
up.
It
is like
the
beginning
of The
Tempest,
or episodes
of
A
Winter's
Tale
and Pericles.
The
influence
of
the
voyages
speaks
in
them
all, inciting
the
imagination
to
strange
scenes
and
countries
across
the
seas.
The
atmosphere
of
Arcadia
has
something
in
com-
mon
with
that
of The
Faerie
Qiieene—
the
dreamlike
timelessness
of
a
fairy
world
of romance.
Spenser
was
a friend
of
both
Sidney
and
Raleigh,
and
the
intro-
ductory
stanzas
to
Book
II
acknowledge
the
impulse
of
the
expansion:
But
let
that
man
with
better sense advise
That
of
the
world
least part
to us
is
red;
And
daily how through
hardy
enterprise
Many
great regions
are
discovered,
Which
to late
age
were
never
mentioned.
Who ever
heard
of
th'
Indian
Peru?
Or who
in
venturous
vessel
measured
The
Amazon
huge
river
now
found true?
Or
fruitfullest Virginia
who
did
ever
view?
Yet
all these
were
men
no
man
did them
know,
Yet
have
from
wisest
ages hidden
been;
And
later
times
things
more
unknown
shall
show.
With
people
in
general, America
is
always
regarded
as
overflowing
with
gold:
this is what
it
chiefly
meant
to
people
in
the Old
World—
as
it
still
does to
some.
Marlowe
has several
references
to
this
in
Tambur-
laine:
Desire
of
gold,
great
sir?
That's
to be gotten
in
the
Western
Ind:
The
thought
is
expressed
by Greene,
Peele,
Lyly,
7/17/2019 American Heritage December
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Massinger,
Chapman. It
appears
in
Shakespeare,
where
sooner
or
later
everything gets expression. We
must
remember
that
America,
in
this
connotation,
often
appears as
India,
with or
without
the adjective
Western.
This is made
sufficiently
clear
by
the
dominant
association
with
mines.
As bountiful
as
mines of
India,
he
writes.
Henry VIII's meeting with
Francis
I
at
the
Field
of
the
Cloth of Gold
Made
Britain
India; every
man
that
stood
Showed like
a
mine.
In
Twelfth
Night,
when
Maria appears
to
lay
down
the
letter that entraps
Malvolio, Sir Toby
belches,
How
now, my
metal
of
India,
i.e.,
piece
of
gold.
When Malvolio falls
into
the
trap and is utterly
be-
mused,
Maria
reports,
He does smile
his
face
into
more
lines
than is in the new map with the
augmenta-
tion of the
Indies.
That was the
map that
went with
the first
volume of
the enlarged
edition
of
Hakluyt
published
in
1598.
Shakespeare
derived
inspiration
and profit
from reading Hakluyt. The theme
of
dig-
ging
for
gold
is
an
important
element in Timon—a.t a
time,
too,
when the
Jamestown
colony was
tempo-
rarily
given
over to a frantic
search for
it.
One writer
declared
in
1608
that there was
then no
talk,
no
hope,
no
work but to dig
gold,
wash
gold, refine gold,
load gold. And
this
was about
the
date when Timon
was
written.
The
combination
of
the
gold theme
with
digging
for roots for
subsistence comes
straight
from
the
voyages.
The
theme
is
extended in the
scenes
that
Chapman,
Raleigh's poet,
contributed
to
Ben
Jonson
and
John
Marston's
Eastward
Ho
The
absurd Sir Petronel
Flash's money is
bestowed
on
a
ship bound for Vir-
ginia.
Security
comments: We
have
too few
such
knight adventurers:
who would not
sell
away com-
petent
certainties
to
purchase, with any
danger, excel-
lent
uncertainties? This
was
precisely
what
many did
for
Virginia,
and New England too. Seagull
helps
with
a
lot of
mariners'
tales
about
Virginia
to
gull the
pub-
lic. Come, boys,
he
says,
Virginia
longs
till
we
share
the
rest of
her maidenhead.
That
was a
regular
phrase with the
voyagers—
Raleigh's phrase
for
Guiana.
On
this
Spendall asks:
Why,
is
she
inhabited al-
ready
with any
English?
Seagull:
A
whole
country
of
English
is
there,
man,
bred of
those
that
were
left
there in
'79.
(Actually
the
date was
'87;
but we
do
not
go
to
dramatists
for
dates any more
than
to
his-
torians for
dramatics.) They
have married with
the
Indians
and make
'em
bring
forth as
beautiful
faces
as
any
we
have
in
England, and therefore
the
Indians
are so in
love
with 'em
that all the treasure
they have
they
lay
at
their feet.
Scapethrift:
But
is
there
such
treasure there,
captain,
as I have heard? Seagull:
I
tell
thee,
gold is
more
plentiful there
than
copper is
with
us; and
for
as
much
red
copper as I can
bring,
I'll
have
thrice
the weight
in
gold.
Why,
man,
all their
dripping
pans and their chamber
pots are
pure
gold;
and all
the
chains
with
which they chain
up their
streets
are
massy
gold;
all
the
prisoners they take
are
fettered
in
gold;
and
for
rubies
and diamonds
they
go
forth on holidays
and gather
'em by
the
sea-
shore.
.
.
Scapethrift asks,
And
is
it a pleasant
country
withal? Captain
Seagull
replies: As
ever
the
sun shined on: temperate and
full
of
all
sorts
of
excel-
lent
viands.
These
leads—
Spenser, Marlowe, Chapman—
all
point
to Raleigh,
as they
were all
his friends;
he
stands
at
the
crossroads
in literature,
as
he
did
in
these
actions.
The
captains
he
sent to reconnoiter
Virginia
in
1584
reported
as
follows:
The
second of
July
we found
shoal
water, where
we
smelt
PRINCIPAL NAVI-
GATIONS,
VOIAGES,
TRAFFIQ^ES
AND
DISCO-
ueriesofcheEnglifli
Nation, made
by
Sea
•orouer-land
,
to the
remote
and
farthcftdi-
ftant quarters
of
the
Eanh, at
any time
within
ihccojnpafTcofthelc
1500.
yecrcs:
Druidcd
mioui'cefcuerallVoIiiaici, atcordmgiotbc
|>oI>uooiofihcKcgioni,»hcTciKUO
dicjp wcf
c ducftcd.
Th
is firft
Volume
containing the
woonhy Difcouerfcs,
&c.
of
the
EngliOi
toward
the
North
and Nonheaft
by
fca,
asof
LdfUnd^crikfinu,Ccre u,ihi.
Bajc of
S.
NiceLu^ the
Iflcs
of
Col*
goieue.,yaig^i\y^n6 NoHi
ZembU,
toward
the
great
riucrO^,
witH the
mighty Empire cl
RufU.^zCtifpianici.Geor*
rit,K^rmemay
Media, Perfu,Eoghdr\nBg{thSf
anddiucrs kingdoms
of
r^/jrw.-
Together
with
many
notable
monuments and tcflimo*
Dies
of the ancient forrcn
trades,
and
of
the
warrclikc
and
ochcrfliippingofihisrcilmcof
£ng/rtfl^in former agei.
Vyhennnto
is annexed al/o
c hnefe
Qmmentarie
of
the
trut
due
o{Jjl4/}d
, and
ofthcNorthren Seas and
lands fliuacc chit
\vi^.
^^ndUph,
thememorahU iefutt cftheSfAn'ifl) ha^e
'
^rmatU,
j^ntu
1
/
f
t. and
the fimou* viflotie
atcliicucd
31
the cicic ofCa^^. '
js
^'
tre
dcrccibed.
HlCHAKD
HaiLVYT
t^f*Tttr
tf
Aitci,
udfomcumc
Student
of
ChnlU
CbutchinO^otd.
Imprinted
at
London
by
G
b
o
r
o
r
Bishop,
Ralph
Newberib
andKoxiRT
Ba&kiiu
1
5
P
8.
Title
page
from
Sir
Ferdinando
Gorges*
copy
of
HakluyVs
Principal Navigations
(1398),
bearing Gorges'
signature.
47
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so
sweet
and so
strong
a
smell
as
if
we
had been
in
the
midst of
some
delicate garden abounding
with
all kind
of
odoriferous
flowers,
by which
we
were
assured
that
the
land
could
not
be
far
distant
. . . We viewed
the
land
about
us,
being, whereas
we first landed,
very sandy
and
low
towards
the
water's
side,
but
so
full
of grapes
as
the
very
beating
and
surge
of the sea overflowed
them;
of
which
we found
such
plenty,
as
well on every
little
shrub as
also
climbing
towards
the tops
of high cedars
that
I think
in
all
the
world
the
like
abundance
is
not
to be
found.
Under the
bank
or hill
whereon
we
stood,
we
beheld
the
valleys
replenished
with
goodly
cedar
trees.
In
the
poem Raleigh
was
writing
some
years
later
to
recover
the
Queen's
favor
(but never
finished),
Cynthia,
the
Lady
of
the Sea,
we read:
On
highest
mountains
where
those
cedars
grow
Agai?ist
whose
banks
the
troubled
ocean
bet
And
were
the
marks
to
find
thy
hoped
port
Into
a soil
far
off
themselves
remove.
And
when
we
come
to
Drayton's
ode,
To
the
Virgin-
ian
Voyage,
we
find:
When
as
the
luscious
smell
Of
that
delicious
land
Above
the sea
that
flows
The
clear
wind
throws.
Your
hearts
to
swell
Approaching
the
dear
strand.
And
the
ambitious
vine
Crowns
with
his purple
mass
The cedar
reaching
high
To kiss
the
sky.
The
cypress,
pine.
And
useful
sassafras.
Of
the
motives
that
could
lead
men
to leave
home
Raleigh
speaks, in
his
own
case:
My
hopes
clean
out
of
sight
with
forced
wind
To
kingdoms
strange,
to
lands
far
off
addressed
.
. .
And
he
sums
them
all
up
in
one
famous
line:
To seek
new
worlds
for
gold,
for
praise,
for
glory.
There
was
a
whole
succession
of
literary
men
who
went
as
officials
to Virginia:
William
Strachey,
John
Pory,
Christopher
Davison,
George
Sandys.
Donne,
who
was
hard
up
before
he
condescended
to
enter
the
Church,
sought
to be
made
secretary.
Strachey,
a
Cambridge
man,
moved
in
a
literary
and
dramatic
circle
in
London.
He
was
a
shareholder
in
the
Chil-
dren
of
the
Queen's
Revels
and
so
came
to
Blackfriars
two
or
three
times
a
week,
where
he
would
meet
Shakespeare.
In
1609
he
went
out with
Gates
and
Somers
in
the
Sea
Venture,
which
was
famously
wrecked
on
Bermuda,
though
all
were
saved
and
spent
an
agreeable
winter
there.
The
extraordinary
happen-
ing
made
a strong
impression
on
people's
minds
at
CONTINUED
ON
PACK
57
A
wildernes
as
God
first
made
it
GENERALL
HISTORIE
ov
Virgima.New-England.and
the
Summer
'
Iflc5
wiih
tKe names
of
the
Adventurer5,
Planters.and
Covernours
from
their
firfl
beginning
j\n: I
j-8
4.
to
this
prefent
162S
JM
intSdc^omu mat
ftfc^thm
in
oiFihcr
cTimrm'esStd^ifcai^rtes
t,
Alfo
the
Maps
and
Defcriptionsofall
thofe
Cotmiryes.
their
Conunoditicsjjeople,
Govcmmcnt.Curiomes.and
P&ligion
yei
knowne
.
y^
Dll'IDED
INTO
SECE
BoOKES
.
/I^BvOwtmr WHS
SMITHJmetYmesOmrvf'ir'
'^^
,i
tny,,^a'untp&cBf&aP.
•£h
VNcw Engbnd
^^
'
LONDON
InntcdtylD
anj
,,s
I H for
tdwara
M
^.
From
the
frontispiece
of
Smith's
Gen-
eral]
Historic,
one
of
his
several
books.
48
To
its
first
colonists,
Virginia
presented
an aspect
less
idyllic,
if
no
less
strange,
than
it
held
for
their
compatriots
back
home
in
England.
On
the
following
pages
are
photographs
of the
area
near
Jamestown,
taken
by Bradley
Smith,
which
show
as
closely
as
possible
how
the
landscape
would
have
looked
to
Captain
John
Smith
and his
companions,
when they
came
here
to
plant
a colony,
and
look for
gold,
in
1607.
The
quotations
that
accompany
them
are
taken
from
Edward
Arber's
edition
(1884)
of
Smith's
Works,
which
includes
not
only his
own
writ-
ings
but
various
letters
and
accounts
by his
fellow
adventurers.
The
first
land
we
made,
we
fell
with
Cape
Henry,'
the
verie
mouth
of
the
Bay
of
Chissiapiacke,
which
at
that
present
we little
expected,
having
by
a
cruell
storme
bene
put
to
the
Northward.
Their
landfall:
Cape
Heniy
from the
sea.
dijring
a
s
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Archers
Hope
flefl),
the point
of land
unsuited for tfieir colony
The
twelfth day
[of
May'\,
xve
-went
l/acke
to
our
ships; and
discovered
a
point
oj
Land,
called
Archers
Hope, ivhich
wassnjiicient
ivitli
a little labour
to
defend
our
seh>es
against
an\
Enemy.
.
. .
If
if
liad
not heoie
disliked because
the ship
could
not
ride
neere the shoare.
we
had setled there
to
all the
Collonies
co)ite)itinent.
The
thirteenth
day
[of
Max],
ice came to
our
seating
place
in
Paspihas
Countrey,
some eight
miles
from
the point
of
Land
[of]
-which
I
made
mention
before;
-where our
ship
pes doe
lie
so neere
the
shoare
that
they
are
moored
to
tlie
Trees
in
6.
fathom luater.
Jaincsiouii
Kiaiul.
where
ihe\
iiiuored
in
laic afternoon.
Ma\
13.
1C07
Janiotown Ulaml from
ilie hindward side
50
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Oil lilt'
it'est
side
oj
llic Jiii\,
icf
siiiil
ii'cre
5.
faire
tind
(Iflighljiiil
navigable
rwers. . . .
The
fnsi
oj
those rix'ers
and the
next lo
the
inoiilh
of
the Bay.
hath
liis course
from
the
]\'est
and
by
North.
The
iiaiiie
oj this
rixier
they
call
Poxchataii, accor\ding\ to the name
of
a jirincipall
couutr\ that
lieth
uJ)on
it.
. . .
The
most
of
these rivers are
inhabited
by
senerall
nations,
or
rather
families,
of
the name
of
the
rix'ers.
. .
.
In
a
peninsula
on
the
North
side
oj
this
river
are
the
English planted in
a
place
by
them
called
James
Toxvne. in
honour
of
the Ki)igs
most
excellent
Alajestie.
51
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\^
n
(-
- \:
^^:'v/-\
*>?•
t
s
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King
deck, up the
James
Ri\er from
Jamestown
For the
nwst
jmrt
the earth
is
a
black
stnulx
iiioidd.
in some phices
a
fat
slimy clay,
in
other
places
a
very
barren
gravell.
. . .
By
tJie
rivers
are
many
pbiine
marishes
containing
some
20,
some
ino,
some
200
Acres,
sonie
more,
sonie
lesse.
Other
j)laines
there
are
fewe,
but only
where
the
Sahiages inhabit: but all
overgroivne
-with
trees
dr
weedes,
being
a
plaine wildernes as God
first
made
it.
On Slingia)
I'uinl,
near
DcUaville,
\
iiyiiua
Our
liote by
reason
of
the
ebl)e chansi)ig
to
grounid
npon
a
many
shoitles lying i)i
the
entra)ices, ive
spyed ma)iy fishes
lurking
i)i
the
reedes:
our
Captaine
sporting
himselfe
by
nayling
them to
the
groicnd
with
liis sword, set
us all a
fislii>}g
in
that
manner:
thtis we
tooke
more
in
one
houre than
we
could eate in
a
day.
But
it
chansed
our
Captaine
taking
a
fish
from
his
siuord
(not
knowing
her
condition)
. . .
ivhereon the
middest
\xi'as]
a
most
poysoned
sting,
of
two
or
three
inches
long,
bearded
like
a
saio
on
each
side,
which
she
strucke
into
the
icrest
oj
his
arme
iwerc
an
inch
and
a
halje: no
bloud
nor
wound
was
scene,
but a
little
blew
spot,
but the
torment was
instantly so
extreame,
that
in
foure
lioures
had
so
swolen
his
hand,
arme,
and
shoulder, we
all
n'ith
much
sorro-w
concluded
(anticipated)
his funerall,
and
prepared
his
grave
in
an
Island
by,
as
himselfe
directed.
.
.
.
ice
called
the
Island
Stingray
Isle
after
the
name
of
the
fish.
53
tar
swiinip
on Jainr^ttnvii
T'^land
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A
marsh
on
the
C;hickahomin\
River, near Toano
TJie next
voyage
hee proceeded
so
farre
that
witli in
iicit
labour
hy
cittling
of
trees insunder
he
made
his
passage. . .
.
Being
got
to
the
marshes
at
the rivers
head,
ticentie
myles
i)i
the
desert,
[he]
had
his
two
men slaine
(as is
supposed)
sleeping
by
the
C.unowe,
whilst
himself
e by
fowling
sought
them
viduall:
who
finding
he was
beset with
200.
Salvages,
tiro
of
them hee slew,
still defending
himselfe
wifli
the
a\d
of
a
Salvage
his
guid,
whom
lie
bound
to
liis arme n'itli
liis
garters, and
used
Jiim
as
a
buckler.
yet
lie zcas
shot
in his
thigh
a
little, and had
many arroiues
that
stuche
in his
cloathes but
no
great hurt,
fill
at
laste
they tooke
him
prisoner.
. . .
At
last they
brought
him
to Meronocomoco
(=i
Jan.
i6nS).
ichere
was Powhatan
their Emperor.
.
. .
Having feasted
him
after
their best
barbarous
manner
they could,
a
long
consultation
was held.
but
the
conclusion was,
two
great
stones were
brought
before
Powhatan:
then
as
many
as could layd
Jiands
on
him, dragged
him to them,
and
thereon laid
his
head,
and
being ready with
their
clubs.
to
beate out his
braines. Pocahontas
the Kings
dearest
daughter,
iflieii
no intreaty
could
prevaile.
got
his
head in
her armes,
and
laid her owne
upon his to save him
from
death.
. . .
54
Trail
leading
to the
site of
Powhatan's
\
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.Vv
«:^'^^^,<^
-*
Hf'^i
-''^^J .
^V^;
tte
<
^r.|-'.
;:s^
^^.-.-^-^---v^-
^^•mi>
IJV
r'^;
^.
*.'
•^-
.^«:;'
'
^
/
-'.
^^v
r
_ ;
f
X V
y>'
/
/
_=^^-
r-:^-
.^.
•
-'i^O^f*
rt^
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The
site,
determined
by
archaeologists,
of
Jamestown
Colony
Nolo
this
our
yong
Common-wealth
of
Virginia,
as
you
have
read
once
consisted
but
of
^S
f)ersons,
and
in
two
yeares
increased
hut
to
200.
.
. .
If
we
truely
consider
our
Proceedings
with
the
Spanyards,
and
the
rest,
we
have
no
reason
to
desfmyre,
for
with so
small
charge,
they
never
had
either
greater
Discoveries,
with
such
certaine tryals
of
more
several
Commodities,
then in
this
short
time
hath
beene
returned
from
Virginia
and
by
much lesse
meanes.
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The
Delicious LaruV
CONlINrKI)
IROM
PAGE
48
home, and
several
accounts ol
it
appeared, the
most
detailed being
Strachey's letter
to
a
noble
iatly,
which
circidated in
manuscript. It
is
not
sinprising
thai
the
most impressionable
mind
in
that circle
was
struck
by
it, lor this was the germ ol
Tlic
Tempest.
It
is
somehow
right
that,
just
as
More's
Utopia
provides
the first expression
of
genius
of the
New
'World
in our
period,
so
Tlie Tempest
]jrovitles
the
last;
that these two
transcenilent
minds
shoidd have
risen to the full
height ol the
theme.
For
there
is
far
more
of
the New
World in
Shakespeare's
play than
the
original
suggestion from
Strachey's letter: the
storm
with its veracious
details, St.
Elmo's
fire
llaming
ama/cment
along the mainmast;
the wreck and not
a
hair
of
the
people
hurt;
the
enciianted
island
fidl of
noises,
for
Bernuida
was believed
to be
haiuited
by
evil
spirits. The
whole
play sings
of the sea; the love-
liest
songs
are
of
the
sea:
Full
fiitliuiii
five
lliy
fiillwr
lies,
Of
his
bones are
coral
made;
Those
are
pearls
that
were his
eyes:
Nothing
of
hiin that
(loth
fade
But
doth
suffer
a
sea-change
Into
something
rich and
strange.
Not
only
that,
but
\vith
the creation
of
Caliban,
the
primitive savage,
possessor
of the
islaiul,
and his
relation
to
Prospero,
the very civilized
and lordly per-
son who
dispossesses him,
the whole
question of what
happens
when
civilization
makes its
impact
upon
primitive
society is
placed
before us
in
a
\vay
we
can
never
forget.
Our sympathies
are
not
with Prospero
—and
jjerhaps
in
the subconscious
corridors of the
mind we
think
of
\vhat
happened to
the
redskins.
There
is
something deeply
affecting about
Cialiban:
. . .
When
lliou
nimrst
first.
Tliou strok'dst me and
niad'sl
mucli
of
me;
would'st
give me
Water
ivith berries in't and teach me
how
To
name
the
bigger light, and how the
less.
That
burn by
day and
night
.
.
.
This
is
what had happened time
and
again,
generation
after generation,
with
tribe after tribe, all
along
the
coasts of America when the Indians came in
lontact
with the white
men anil
their
su])erior
knowledge.
We
read
in Hakluyt
and
Captain Smith
with
wiiat axiility
they learned al)out the stars and
the
tnniament,
watched
the
white
men's
instruments, were im])ressed
by
lodestone
and magnet,
optic
glass
and
clock.
. .
. and then
I
lov'd
thee
And
sliow'd
thee
all the qualities n' the
isle.
The
fresh sf)rings,
l/riiiepils.
harrrn
place,
and
fertile.
That, too,
had often
ha])]jened—
we remember
how
Sqiuinto
showed
the
Pilgrims
where best
to take their
fish and how
to set Indian
corn, and enabled
them
to
subsist
through
the
hard
first
years. In one
sense the
Indians were
cjuick
to
learn;
in another,
they
never
learned—
the gulf
between
their primitive
cast of mind
and
that
of
the white
man
was too deep
to bridge. And
so the
red
man lost
in the
struggle for
existence. Nor
did he
profit
from
his knowledge,
in spite of
his
expe-
riences
at the hand
of the
white man. /\fier
Prospero
comes
the
drunken
Stephano:
CALIBAN':
/
prithee,
let me
bring
thee where crabs grow;
And
I
with my long
nails
-will ilig lliec j)igi uts;
Show
thee a jay's
nest
and instruct thee
how'
To
snare
the
nimble tnarmozet:
Til brirtg
thee
To
clusl'ring
filberts
and sometimes
I'll get
thee
Young
scaniels
from
the
rocks
. .
.
In
spite
of what
he
has
sulfered
at the hand of Pros-
j)cro, Caliban
now wants
Stephano to
be his
god:
I'll show
thee
every
fertile
inch
o'
the
island;
And
I
will
kiss
thy
foot:
I
prithee,
be
my
god.
We are reminded of
the native
Californians
who em-
barrassed
Drake
and
his
men
by
taking
them
for
gods.
he idea
of an original
state ol nature
was
to
have
an important
development
in politi-
cal
speculation
and theorizing about
so-
ciety,
and it
was given immense
impetus
by
what
men
discovered
in
the New Workl. It
was
brought
home
vividly
to me years
ago
when
I
saw
John
Locke's
library
as it had come down in
the
possession
of his
representatives:
we take
it for
granted
that
la-
was a generalizing
and
abstiac
t
thinker,
as
he
was,
l)ut
his library
was
fidl
of the /Vmerican
voyages.
There,
made visible,
\vas
an
example
of
the way
early anthro-
pology
went
into
political
theory.
Tudor
lolk
were
fascinateil
by
the trappings
of In-
dian
life
and the
spectacle of
Indians,
Irom
the
time
Cabot
brought some
back to
the
streets
of Westminster,
and a
Brazilian chief
was
presentetl
at the
court of
Henry
VIII. In i()i4—
\vhen
the
great
X'irginian
venture
was
much
in
mind—
two
mascpies
were given
by the
Inns
of Cknn t. Bacon's Masque
of
i'lowers
argued
the
merits
and
demerits
of
Virginia's
chief product, tobacco,
before
the
antitobacconist
James
I.
Cha|)man's
masque,
a nuicli grantler
alfair
drcsseil
by
Inigo
Jones,
had
the
masquers attiretl in Indian
costume,
with
iiigh
s]}rigged leathers on
their
heatls,
hair black anil large
waving
down
to
their
shoulders.
The nuisiiians
were
attired
like Virginian
priests —
no
iloui)t
from
John
A\'hite's
dr;iwing.
But the
serious-minded
C:ha])man
addressed
himself
to a
searching theme, the
])roi)lem
posed
by the
diversity
of
religion
revealeil by
a
new
57
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\vorld, ol
wliich Holy
Scripture, which held
the
key
to
all
human
history, had
no
knowledge.
The orthodox
poet
spoke through
Eunomia, representing
civilized
order:
Virginian
princes,
you must
now
renounce
Your
superstitious
luorship
of
these
Suns,
Subject
to
cloudy darlteniiigs
and
descents.
And
of
your
fit
devotions turn
the event
To tliis
our
British
Plioebus,
whose
hrii^^ht
sky
(Enlightened
with
a
Christian
piety)
Is never
subject
to bliiik error's
night.
And
hatli already
offered
lieaven's
true
light
To ynur
dark
region.
There
were
jjeople,
even
then,
who
speculated
sensibly
whether
the
American
Indians
had
not
come
across
the
narrow
divide
oi
the
Bering
Strait
trom
Asia.
Some reflection
ol
these
speculations
may
be
seen
in Bacon's
jeu
d'esprit. The
New
Atlantis.
Nat-
urally
the
influence
ol
the voyages
and
of reading
Hakluyt
is ajjparent,
and Bacon
had
a direct
interest
in
colonization
by this time:
he
was one
of
the Coun-
cil
for
Newfoundland.
Bacon's
Utopian
island
was
in
the
Pacific,
which
might
still have
islands
and
con-
tinents
not
yet
come
to light—
Australia
was
yet
to
come
out
of
it.
But
he
refers
to
the
inimdation
of
an
Atlantic
continent,
and
the shrinking
Atlantic
shelf
of
America.
Hence
the
American
Indians
were
but rem-
nants
ol
a people:
Marvel
you
not at
the
thin
popu-
lation
of
America,
nor
at
the
rudeness
and ignorance
of
the people; lor
you
must
accept
yom- inhaijiiants
of
America
as a
yoinig
people: younger
a
thousand
years,
at
the
least,
than
the
rest
ol
the woi
Id.
The
mind
of
the
poet
fDonne
was
markedly
stimu-
lated
by
the
geographical
curiosity of
the
time.
This
is
reflected
in the
unexpected
images he
reaches
out lor
on
the subject
of
love:
Let
sea-discojierers
to neio
worlds luwe
ironc.
Let
maj)s to others xuorlds
on
jeorhls
have
shoiun.
Let
us
l)ossess
one
world,
eaih
hath one
and
is
one.
]]'here
we
ran
find
two belter
heinisfherrs
Without
shaifi
\orlh.
unlhout
declininu,
West:'
Or
in addressing
his
mistress,
going
to
bed,
in
some-
what
unusual
teiins:
O
my
America
my
new-found-land.
My
kingdom,
safeliest
when
with
one
man
mann<'d
Many
were
the sermons
that
were
preached
to
speed
the Virginia
enterprise;
but
Donne's
sermon is
the
finest
specimen
of
the class,
in which
it is
elevated
to
literatme.
As
we
should
expect,
he raised
the
issues
presented
by colonization
to
a
higher
plane,
fie
warned
those going
against
seeking
independence
or
exemption
from
the
laws
of Englaml.
If
those
that
govern
there
woidd
establish
such
a government
as
should
not depend
upon
this,
or if those
that
go thither
propose
to themselves an
exemption
from laws
to live
at
their
liberty,
this
is to
. . . divest
allegiance
and
be under
no
man.
And
Donne
had
something to
say
which is
very
much
to the point
in the modern
dis-
cussion
about colonialism.
The law
of nations ordains
that
every
man
improve
that
which he hath
. .
.
the whole
world,
all mankind
must
take care that all
places
be
improved
as far as
may
be
to the
best
advan-
tage of mankind
in
general.
^ith
a
New World being
discovered, there
\vas not only an
immense extension of
geo-
graphical
knowledge,
but
a comparable
impetus to improve
its
quality and
tech-
niques.
England
was backward in this
art,
as
in so
much
else;
but
now
her
geographers
profitetl
from their
con-
tacts
with these
leaders
of
thought,
^vhile
they
made
use
of
the
information
gathered
by the English voyag-
ers
in
constructing their
maps—
Ortelius,
of Anthony
Jenkinson,
for
Russia
and
Persia;
Mercator,
of
Drake,
for
America
and the Pacific.
Though English
map
makers in this
field
were
not
yet
comparable,
they
^\ere beginning.
Frobisher's and Gilbert's
voyages
to
North
America led
to a considerable
increase
of in-
formation
about
the
northern
areas,
reflected
in the
ma]is
of Michael
Lok
and Thomas
Best.
A
number
of
John
Dec's
maps
of these
regions
remain,
and
illus-
trate, as everything about him
does, his ciuious
mix-
tine of shrewd criticism
and crazy
credulity.
His map
of North
America
based
on
Ciilbert's
explorations,
for
examjile, has
a
propel
realization
of the width
of the
continent
across
CJanada;
inu
theorist
that
he
was,
he
had
no compunction
in
tracing
a \\'aterway right
across,
to
debouch
with the
Colorado into Southern
California,
liy
the
end of the
century,
much more
exact
and
uselul tontributions
were
being
made
to
naviga-
tion
and
cosmography
by such men as
John
Davis and
Edward
Wright.
Hariot
appears as
the
most complete,
all-round
sci-
entist
of
that
time, with
his
interest
alike in
inathe-
uKitics
and
astronomy,
anthropology
and
navigation.
He
set
forth
a
model of first-class
scientific method
with
his Brief
niul True
Report
of
the
new
found
land
of
Virginia.
It is
the A\ork
of
a
superior
mind;
no
Eliza-
bethan quaiiuness
in
this;
no
fancy,
let alone fantasy;
all is in
due order
based
on
close
observation,
accu-
rately
brought
into
correlation with
existing
cate-
gories.
It gives
an account of
the
flora
and fauna:
the
commodities
of
the
country
with
their qualities
and
uses:
methods of
agriculture and
properties
of the soil,
plants
and
fiiiits
and roots;
the beasts,
fowl,
and fish;
ending with
the
nature and
manners
of the people,
for
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Haiiot hail
learned
enough ot
their
languaj^e
to
coni-
numitate
witli
them about
their
notions
and belicis.
This
concise
little
work,
important as
it
is, is
only
a
fragment
of the
materials collected by Hariot and
John
White
at Roanoke.
White was
similarly engaged
in
mapping the
coasts
and
sounds
and
rendering the
life of
the place
in his water
colors of the
])lants
and
fishes,
the
characters
and
ways of
the natives,
fiut
alter
the
hurricane
that
decided the
colony to
leave,
many
of
their maps
and
papers
were
lost in
the
sea in
the
lunricd
transfer of
their goods to
flrake's ships.
Others
of
White's papers
lelt on
Roanoke
weic
spoiled by the
Indians.
But
what
remains
is
considerable.
The
impact of
America upon
natmal
history in
gen-
eral,
and
botany in
particular, was no
less exciting. A
wide
range of
new
plants
and
animals
provided
con-
tinuing stimidus to the
scientific
ciniosity, as
well
as
the
fancy,
of
naturalists in
England as
else;vhere. And
this is
reflected
in
their books.
From the
New
World
came the
giant snnflower,
nasturtiinn,
Michaelmas
daisy,
lobelia,
evening
primrose,
and
so
on.
liut
by
lar
the
most
important
introductions
were
tobacco and
the
potato: these
affected history.
The medicinal
properties of tobacco
were consid-
ered
valuable. Hariot
reported that it
purgeth
super-
fluoirs phlegm and other
gross
himiours, and
openeth
all
the
pores
and
passages of
the
body:
by which
means
the use thereof not
only
preserveth the body
from
ob-
structions, but
also (if any be, so
that they
have not
been ot
too long
continuance)
breaketh them.
The
habit of
smoking
spread
rajjidly among
the
courtiers
and
the
upper class,
popularized
by
Raleigh
and
those
in
touch with
the
colonies.
It
was
noted
as
a
piece
of arrogance
on
Raleigh's part
that
he
took
a
pijie
of tobacco
before
he
went to the
scaffold ;
it is
more likely to
have
been to
steady
fiis
nerves,
or
as a
last pleasure on
earth.
E\en
before
the
end
of
the
()ueen's
reign,
the habit was
spreading to the
lower
orders. All this was
good for
X'irginia:
it put the
col-
ony on
its
feet
and
enabled
it to survive.
The
potato has
had
even mcjre effect in
history.
In
The
History
and
Social
Influence
of
the
Potato,
Retl-
(
iille
N.
Salaman
writes: The
introduction
ol llie po-
tato has |)roved to
Ije
one
of
the major
events
in
man's
recent
histoiy,
but,
at
the time,
it
was
a
matter
of
rela-
tively
little moment
and
called
forth
no
innuediate
public connnent.
To
the Elizabethans
the
innocuous
potato was
not only sustaining,
but
stinudating to
lust.
We
remember that
when
Falstatt,
with
the
worst inten-
tions,
gets
Mistress
? ord and
Mistress
Page to
come in
to
him,
he calls on
the
sky to rain
potatoes.
,\mid
so
much that is earthy, not to say nunky, about
this
root,
Dr. Salaman
thinks
it cjuite
probable
that
Raleigh
did
introiluce
the growing <jf po
more
of the
niau) tilings he has
to
answer for.
'I'his
certainly
had lemote
and
far-reaching
consecjuences,
setting
in motion
the
cycle that idtimately
led to the
mass
migration of the
Irish,
dining and
alter
the
Famine, to
.America.
It was from Ireland, too, iliat |()hn
White's dra\\ings
of
.American
lile turned
up,
having
long ago
disap-
peared
from \\ew. In
the
entl, it
is
through
such things
as
these—
Powhatan's
mantle, a wampum girdle
or
a
shell necklace, the things
the
Elizabethans
held in
their
hands
and
brought
home,
the Ilotsam
and
jetsam
of
time— that we are most ilirectly in touch with that
early
American life,
as well as
through
those
fragments
of
memory that
have
entered into folklore, the
unlor-
gotten impre.ssion
that
Pocahontas made on
the
Eng-
lish
people
in her
day—
still
alive
in the
famous inn
sign,
La
Belle
Sauvage.
I write these words not
far
from
a village in
Cornwall
still
called after her,
Indian
Queen's.
For
w'hat
enters into
the unconscious
life of
the
mind and
is
carried on
in
folklore is
the
best
evi-
dence
of
the
strength
of
conmion
memories,
common
affections, antl connnon ancestry.
tatoes into
Ireland—
one
With
the
tomb
of
the
Great
Qiieer},
and
a
chasten-
in'^
xierse
froiii
the
t'suhnist
iihoxie
it
(jrom the
elaborate title /mi;c
of
I'lirchas
his
rilsrimes,
7625),
we
end
this series
l>y
Dr.
A.
L.
Rowse,
the
noted English
authority
on
the
Elizabethan
era.
It
forms
part
of
his
hoolt
The
F.lizalK'thans
and
America, recently
j^ulilislied
by
Harper
c
lirothers.
59
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JVas
itf
as
Navy Secretary
Welles believed^
*'a co/ispiracy
to overthrow
the
gover)ime7it''
WHEN
CONGRESS
TRIED
TO
RULE
President
Andrew
Johnson
When
in
the
spring
of
1868
the
Senate of
the
United States
declared Andrew
Johnson
not
guilty
of the
high
crimes
and
misdemeanors
charged
against
him
by
the House,
Congressman
Thaddeiis
Stevens
predicteil
that
ne\er
again
would
a
serious
effort
be
made to impeach an
American
Presi-
dent.
\\'hat
the
sharp-spoken
^sarrior
from Pennsyl-
vania
was
saying, of
coinse,
^vas
that
the
failiue
to re-
move
Johnson
had
set
a
precedent that future genera-
tions
^vould
hesitate to
challenge.
.A.t seventy-six
Stevens,
emaciated
and
sick, present-
ing
to
the
world
the
appearance
of
a
white
old
rock
drying
in
the
sini,
^vas
almost
at
the
end of
his earthly
course.
His
comment
on
the
omcome of
Johnson's
trial,
of
which
he
himself
was
the
chief
architect,
was
the
last
remark
of
more
than
passing interest he
^voidd
ever
make, ft
^\as also
one of
his
most
tantalizing,
for
it
fastened
attention
on a question
that
still
hovers
over
the
only
attempt
to
date to
drum
a Chief Execu-
tive
out of offi(
e.
The question is
why—
why tlid
the
leaders
of the
Republican majority
in
Congress
go
to
the
enormous
bother
of
trying
to
depose
a
President
who had
long
since, and
irretrievably,
lost
all ability to interfere
in
any substantial
\\ay
with their legislative
programs?
On
the
sinface,
the purpose of
Johnson's
enemies
was
to
call
a
halt
to
his persistent opposition to
their
plans
for reconstructing the
eleven
formerly
Confed-
erate
states, all
of
which,
except Tennessee,
^\ere still
out
of
the
Union
at the time
of
the
impeachment
trial.
For
many of
the
lesser lights among
the
so-called
Radicals
of
the congressional majority
this ^^•as,
no
doubt, the
only motive. But to
say
that
it ^vas
the
only
—or even the
main
and operative—
motive in
the minds
of
Thad
Stevens and
the
other
effective
leaders of
the
impeachment
movement is
to
suggest
that these brainy
and
experienced
politicians
were
incapable of
grasping
realities
that
were
right
inider their noses.
The
members
of
the
congressional majority
did
not
have
to
remove the
President
in
order
to
ha\e their
^\ay
about Reconstruction. They had had their
w^ay
ever since the 1866 elections, which had
given
them
in
both
houses
of
Congress
enough strength
to
override
any vetoes
Johnson
chose to hand down. Thev had
scuttled
his
Reconstruction program
anil substituted
their o\vn.
One
^^av
or
another the\
hail
made
it diffi-
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By
MILTON
LOMASK
cult for
him to
exercise
many
of his
constitutional
jjowers,
hamstringing
him
to
the
point
w
iierc
e\cn
if
they
failed
to
impeach him, he
would
still i^e luiable to
wrest
control
of the
South from
their
hands.
There was
the
Imther
fact
that
Johnson's
term of
office WAf,
almost
over,
and
there
was
no
reason
to be-
lieve that
he could
be
elected
to
another, even
il
some
of the
leaders
of his own
Democratic
party
were
cpiix-
otic
enough,
in i8( )8, to suggest
the
nomination ol a
man so
discredited
in the
eyes
of
the
voters.
His pres-
ence
in
the
White
House
was
annoying,
and sheer
hatred
of the man
was
inlaying
a
role in
liie
How of
events.
Tiie
Repui)lican leaders
had only
to
hiilc tiieir
time
in
patience
for a
fe\\'
months
and
.Vndrew John-
son
would be
out of
their
way.
But
they
didn't
wait,
and
for
this they
had
com-
pelling
reasons—
largely
unspoken,
to i)e sure, and
per-
haps
not
even fiUIy
articulated
in
their own
minds.
Other men
oiuside
their
circle
and
unfriendly to
them
guessed
what
they
were up
to.
One ^vas
(iideon Welles,
Johnson's
Secretary of the
Navy and
Lincoln's
liclore
him.
Behind Welles'
benign
eyes and
his
ec
i
lesiastical
face in its whiskery nest lay a
trenchant and
suspicious
The
House
managers
of
the
impeachtnent
posed
for
Mdthfw
Brady
before
Ihe
trial.
Stevens,
dying,
hobbled
in
on his
cane,
but
bitter
determination
was still
written on
his
face.
Seated with
him
(left
to
right)
are
Prosecutor Benja-
min F.
Butler, Thomas
IVilliarns, and
Chairman
/.
.1.
Bing-
liam; standing,
J.
F.
JVilson,
G. S.
Bnulwell, and
J.
A.
Logan.
mind,
a mind
sometimes
wrong
in
its
judgments but
sometimes devastatingiy accurate. It is
evident,
he
^^•as
writing in his lamous diary
on
the
eve
of
the
trial,
that
the
Radicals in Ciongress
are
in
a
conspiracy
to
overthrow
not
only
the
PresideiU
but the
go\ernnicnt.
Deacon
Welles,
as
he was
now and then called,
was
right. The
determined
nun
behind the
impeach-
ment
had
Ijigger
fish
to
Iry
than
tiie
Reconstruction
ol the South. They were
looking
IjeNond
innnediate
issues to the
reconstruction
of
the .\merican
form
of
government.
A few
of them
overrated
[ohnson,
assiuuing
that
lie
still
possessed the
ca])acity to
impede their
Recon-
struction
plans.
15ut
it is diflicult
to
jjelieve that
Stevens
and
his more
knowing
associates entertained
any
such
misapineliensions.
Far
from
seeing a
danger
in
Johnson's
strength,
these
men
saw an
opportunity
CONTINUED
ON
PACK
I(K)
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By
now it
is probably too late to
do
anything
about it, but the
unsettling
fact
remains
that
the
so-called sale
ot Manhattan
Island
to
the
Dutch in
1626
was a
totally illegal deal; a group of
Brooklyn
Indians
perpetrated
the swindle, and they
had no more right
to
sell Afanhattan
Island
than
the
present
mayor of
White Plains w^oidd
have
to
declare
war
on
France. When
the
Manhattan Indians lound
out
about it
they
were
understantlably
Unions,
but
by
that
tiuie the
Dutch
had
too
strong
a
foothold
to
be
dislodged—
by
ihe Indians,
at
any
rate
-and the
even-
tual
arrival
of
oneway
avenues and
the
Hambuig
Heaven
Crystal Room was
only
a
matter
of
time.
To
imderstand
how
this
was
brought
about, it
is
important
to
know
something about
the
local
Indians
of the period. They
were
all,
or
almost all,
of
Algon-
quian
origin; those
who later became known
as
the
Manhattans
were
actually
Weckquaesgeeks, who
be-
longed
to
the
Wappinger
Confederation.
Their main
village
was Nappeckamack,
on the site
of
what is
now
^'onkers, and they
had
a
fort
called Nipinichsen,
on
the north
bank
of Spuyten Duyvil.
They lived
in
little
clusters of
igloo-like
bark huts,
along
the
east bank of
the
Hudson River and
the
Westchester
shore
of
Long
Island
Soiuid, and they
used
Manhattan
( the
island
of
hills )
for their hunting and fishing
stations.
A path
ran
up
the center
of
the
wooded,
craggy is-
land, and its twenty-hve miles or
so
of
water front were
dotted with
small
camps,
from
which the
Indians con-
ducted
their food-gathering
expeditions.
The
fishing
was more
rewarding
than
it is now; aside
from the
pe-
riodic
runs of shad, there
were sturgeon
and flatfish in
considerable
ninnbers,
and
there
were
massive
oyster
and clam beds
all along
the
shore line.
The squaws
would
shuck the oysters and
dry
them on
sticks
in the
sun, and
it
must
be
assinned
that
ptomaine poisoning
The
I/idians
who
sold
Manhattan were hilkedy
all
right
, but
they
didn
t
mind—
the
land
wasn
V
theirs
anyway
THE
$24
SWINDLE
By NATHAMKL
BEXCHLEY
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was
either
unknown to
ihe >e
Indians
or
else
it
was a
way of
lile.
At any
rate,
tiieir
iliscovered
sliell
piles
are
many,
and their
biuial mounds comparatively
few.
In
addition to all
tluse
delicacies,
e\eiy now and then
a
whale
\\oidd
i^et
strandetl
on
a
sand
bar down
in the
Narrows,
and
the
braves
^vould
take
out
alter
it
in
their
dugout
cancjes.
By yeneial
consent, the Wee
ktiuaesgeeks
(and
it
is
easy to
see
^\•hy
the
Dutch
decided to call them
Man-
hattans)
occupietl
the
northern three quarters
of tiie
island, and the
Clanarsees,
who were members of
the
Montauk, or Long
Island,
branch of
the
Algonquians,
had only the southern tip, plus all of what is
now
Brooklyn.
But
there \\as enough
lish
and
game for
all,
and noboci)
bothered
\ery nnuh
aljout
boundaries.
The game was
fairly
spectacidar;
there
were deer,
bears,
wolves, porcupines. bea\er. otter,
moose,
wild-
cats,
grouse,
and itiikt\, and there
\vere
even
cases
Avlien
an
occasional bison
would
wander
in
from the
west, just in
time
to
Imd
hinisell transformed
into a
i)ullalcj
robe.
In consecpiente
of all
this largess,
the Indians
were
happy
with their
lot.
They
were ^vell
fixed
for
food
and
clothing
(in addition lo the lish
and
game,
they
grew
corn, beans,
jjiun|)kins. and
tobacco,
which
lounded
oiu their
diet
\vitli the
])ioper
e|Mcinean
touch),
and their only real worries
\\ere the
occasional
and
luiexplained
epidemics
that
decimated
their
inun-
bers,
and the ])eriodic raids that the
iqjslaie
.Mohawks
made to
collect
overdue
tribute.
It
was the
Mohawks,
as
a
matter of
fact,
who
later
all but wiped
out the
Canarsees, in
an
act of
unccjnscious
retribiiti\e jirstice.
All the
tribes
of the
area
shared
a
conunon
belief
in
a world after death, iided
over
by
a single
Great
.Spirit,
or
Maiu'tou.
and their
heaven was
a
precise
place—
it
lay
oil
to the
southwest,
jjossibly
wliere
Tren-
nitSIKMM)
1
OK
AmIRK-W
nt-RlIXt.t. IW
KOIlt
K
I
IIMIOKN
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ton,
New
Jersey,
is now.
It
was
a
place
where
game was
even
more
plentiful
than in
real
lite, and
a
great
deal
more
plentiful
than at
the
present
moment,
if
the
fig-
ures
from
Trenton
authorities
are at
all
accurate.
About four
times a
year
the
Indians
had
dances,
either
for
spring
planting,
or
harvest,
or
thanksgiving,
or
the
like,
and they
always
made a
big to-do
when
they set
off
on
a
hunting
expedition.
Their
life
was,
in short,
all
that
the
out-of-door
enthusiasts
would
have us be-
lieve is
good and
true
in
Nature.
The
men
wore
their
hair
in a
scalp lock
that formed
a
brush
from the
forehead
to
the
nape
of
the
neck,
the
side
hair
usually
being
burnt
off with hot
rocks,
and
although
they
sometimes
put
feathers
in
their
hair,
they
never
used
the
Sioux-type
war
bonnet.
They
decorated
their
faces
and
upper
bodies
with
stripes
of
red,
yellow,
and black,
and,
in
order
to
ward
off
both
mosquitoes
and
sunburn,
they
smeared
themselves
with
either
fish
oil, eagle fat,
or
bear
grease. To
get to
leeward
of a
Weckquaesgeek
Indian
on
a
hot
day,
even—
or
especially—
if he
was
in
a
friendly
mood,
was
an
experience
in
itself.
Their
relations with
the
white
men
were,
initially,
good.
The
Indians
were
agreeable,
in
their
way,
and
their
main
reaction
to
the
coming
of
the
white
men
was
one
of
excited
interest, like
schoolchildren
who
have been
joined
by
a
newcomer
with
three
ears. As
far as
anyone
knows,
the
Florentine
explorer
Verra-
zano
was
the
first to
see
Manhattan
and its
natives,
in
1524,
but
no
significant
contact with
the
Indians
is
recorded
until
1609,
when
Henry
Hudson
sailed
up
the
river in
search
of
a
passage
to
the
Orient.
Unfor-
tunately,
a
crewman
of
the
Half
Moon
named
John
Coleman
was
fatally
punctured by
the
Indians,
more
out
of
curiosity
than
anger
on
their
part,
and
in the
subsequent
incidents
between
the
natives
and Hud-
son's
men, a
few
Indians
were
killed.
There
was,
in
fact,
what
amounted to a
pitched
bat-
tle
off
Fort
Nipinichsen,
when
the
Half
Moon's
can-
non
and
the
muskets
of
her
crew
did severe
damage
to
the
braves
on
the
shore
and
in
the
canoes.
But,
everything
considered,
the
relations
were
not
too
bad,
and
the
Indians
were
quite
impressed
by
the
knives,
kettles,
awls, and
blankets
that
Hudson's
men traded
for
their
furs.
As
far
as
they
were
concerned,
a
little
bloodshed
every
now and
then
was
inevitable,
and the
materials the
fur
traders brought
made
up
for
a
great
deal.
In
the
next
fifteen years,
more and
more
fur
traders
arrived on
Manhattan,
some
of
them even
setting
up
storehouses
on
the
southern
tip
of
the
island,
and
in
all
that
time
their
dealings
with the
Indians
were
friendly.
In
1625
the
first livestock
arrived—
103
sheep.
cows,
horses,
and
pigs—and they
were
the first such ani-
mals
the
Indians had
ever
seen. Almost every
Indian
family had
its dogs,
but
beyond
that
the
only
animals
they
knew
were
wild, and
the savages
were
overcome
by
not
only the
sight of
the animals but
also their
by-
products,
such
as milk,
cheese,
bacon, ham, and mut-
ton.
From
the
Indians'
point of
view,
something
new
and
interesting
was
happening
every day
(their
first view
of
the
Dutch
wooden
shoes,
for
instance,
was
the cause
for
no
end of
giggling
and
general merriment), and
since
the
Dutch were
under
strict orders to be as
nice
to
the
natives as
possible,
the
untoward incidents
were
reduced to
an
absolute
minimum. In passing, it is of
interest to note
that
the
rate of
seduction
of
the
Indian
maidens
was
so
small
as to
be
practically
negligible.
Either
they were
afraid
of
their own
menfolk, or the
Dutch
were
unusually
clumsy—or
the
eagle
fat
might
possibly
have
had
something
to
do
with
it.
Whatever
the
reason,
there
was
little
or
no
sexual
scuffling be-
tween
the
natives
and the
colonists.
Then, on
May
4,
1626,
Peter
Minuit,
sent
by
the
Dutch
West
India
Company
to
be
the
formal
director-
general
of New
Netherland,
arrived
on the
Sea-mew.
The
Dutch
knew
that the
French
and
the
British,
the
latter
with
flanking
colonies at
Plymouth
and
James-
town,
would
not
be
particularly
pleased at
the
estab-
lishment
of
a Dutch
colony
in the
area,
and
they
also
knew
that they
didn't
have the
strength
to resist armed
intervention
by
either
nation.
Consequently,
they
re-
solved
to
make
their
purchase of
Manhattan
as
legal
as
possible,
hoping
that
if the
Indians
appeared
to
back
up
their
claim,
the
British
or
French
might hesi-
CONTINUED
ON
PAGE
93
In
respect to
Mark
Twain in
Hartford: The Happy
Years,
the
Editors
gratefully
acknowledge
permission from
the pub-
lishers ;
from
Thomas G.
Chamberlain and the
Hanover
Bank,
Trustees
of the
estate
of
Samuel
L.
Clemens
deceased;
and
from the
Trustees
of
Columbia
University,
to reprint
excerpts
from the
following copyrighted
sources: Mark Twain's
Auto-
biography,
Harper
&
Brothers,
New
York,
1924;
Mark Twain's
Letters,
arranged
by
Albert
Bigelow
Paine, Harper &
Brothers,
New York,
1917;
Mark
Twain,
a
Biography, Albert
Bigelow
Paine,
Harper
& Brothers,
New York,
1912;
My
Father,
Mark
Twain, Clara
Clemens,
Harper
&
Brothers,
New York,
1931;
My
Mark
Twain, William
Dean
Howells,
Harper
&
Brothers,
New
York,
1910;
Crowding Memories,
Mrs.
Thomas
Bailey
Aldrich,
Houghton
Mifflin,
Boston
and
New York,
1920;
Mark
Twain
to
Mrs.
Fairbanks,
Dixon
Wecter,
Huntington
Library,
San
Marino,
California,
1949;
Autobiography
of
Moncure
Daniel
Conway,
Houghton
Mifflin,
Boston
and
New
York, 1904;
Mark
Twain's
Love
Letters,
edited
by
Dixon
Wecter,
Harper &
Brothers, New
York,
1949;
Mark
Twain's
Notebook,
Harper &
Brothers,
New
York,
1935.
All
illustrations
not
otherwise
credited
are
from the
Mark
Twain
Library
and
Memorial
Commission in
Hartford.
64
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iC
l^cu
'^7i
This
is the
story
of
twenty happy
and
productive
years
in
the
life
of Mark
Twain,
told
by
the
author
himself
and
by
those
who
knew him.
Portions
of it were
published earlier
as a
guide to
the Mark
Twain
Memorial,
the house
now
be-
ing
restored
in
Hartford,
Connecticut,
which
Twain
planned,
loved
so
much,
and
lost
under such
tragic
circumstances.
^
Edited by
Henry
Darbee
65
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?
,.„;;v:';SW«
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the literary
man.
It
held
a
distinguished
group
of writers, most
of whom
the Clemenses already
knew.
Furthermore,
with Bliss
as
publisher of
the
Mark
Twain
books,
it held their chief
business
interests
....
He
finally
leased the
fine
Hooker house
on
Forest
Street,
in
that
pleasant seclusion
known as Nook
Farm
—the
literary
part
of
Hartford,
which
included
the
residence
of Charles
Dudley
Warner and Harriet Beecher
Stowe
....
Clemens
and
his
wife
bought
a
lot
for
the new
home that
winter,
a
fine,
sightly
piece of
land on Farmington
Avenue
—
tableland,
sloping down
to
a
pretty stream
that wound through the willows and among the
trees
. . .
Paine describes the
novel
plans tor
Twain's
house:
The plans
for
the
new
house
were
drawn forthwith
by that gentle
archi-
tect
Edward Potter, whose art to-day
may
be
considered
open to
criti-
cism,
but
not
because
of any
lack of
originality. Hartford
houses of
that
period were mainly of the
goods-box
form
of architecture, perfectly
square, typifying
the
commercial
pursuits of many of
their owners.
Potter
agreed
to
get
away
from
this idea, and
a
radical
and even
frenzied
de-
parture
was the
result
. . .
To
the
public, the
three-storied
house
with
its profusion of verandas
and
high-peaked
gables, was
Mark Twain's
practical
joke.
A
contemporary view
of
it
is
given
in
the
Hartford
Daily Times, March
23,
1874:
Most
of the residents
of
Hartford know that Mr. Samuel L. Clemens,
otherwise
known
as
Mark Twain, is
building
a
residence
on
Farmington
Avenue,
a
short
distance
east
of
the
stone
bridge on
that
thoroughfare.
Many of the
readers of
The
Times,
doubtless, have had at least an exter-
nal
view of the
structure, which already has
acquired
something
beyond
a
local
fame ; and
such persons,
we
think,
will agree
with us
in
the
opinion
that it is one
of the oddest
buildings
in the State ever
designed for
a
dwelling,
if
not
in the
whole country.
. . .
William
Dean
Howells,
the well-known novelist and editor, recalls
a
visit
to
Nook
Farm.
In
the
good
fellowship
of
that
cordial
neighborhood
we
had
two
such
days
as
the ageing sun
no
longer
shines
on
in
his
round. There
was
con-
stant
running
in
and
out
of friendly
houses
where
the lively hosts
and
guests
called one
another
by
their Christian
names or
nicknames,
and
no
such
vain ceremony
as
knocking or ringing at doors.
Clemens
was
then
building the
stately
mansion
in
which
he
satisfied his love of
magnificence
as
if it
had
been
another
sealskin
coat, and
he was
at
the
crest
of the
prosperity
which
enabled
him
to
humor every whim or
extravagance.
As
the
house
neared
completion,
Twain penned the
following
complaint
to
his mother-
in-law,
Mrs. Langdon:
I
have
been
bullyragged
all day by
the builder,
by
his
foreman,
by
the
architect,
by
the
tapestry
devil
who
is
to
upholster
the furniture, by the idiot who
is
putting
down
the carpets, by
the scoundrel who is
setting
up
the
billiard-table
(and has left the balls in
New
York),
by
the
wildcat
who is sodding the
ground and
finishing
the driveway (after the sun
went
down), by
a book agent, whose body
is in
the
back
yard
and
the
coroner
notified.
Just
think
of
this
thing
going
on the whole day
long,
and I
am
a
man
who
loathes details with all my
heart
SOME
MAXIMS
OF
MARK TWAIN
'If you
don't
like
the
weather
in
New England,
jus
wait
a
few minutes.
'
'
'More than
one
cigar
at
a tim
is
excessive smoking.
'My
books
are water; those
of
the
great
geniuses are
wine
Everybody
drinks
water.
'
'
Mark Twain's Notebook
Twain's
Hartford home, pictured
Scribner's Monthly,
November,
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Harriet
Beecber
Stowe
Reverend
Joseph
H. Twichell
Twain
and
his literary
neighbor, Charles Dudley
Wain^i.
breeding
consists in
how
much
we think
of
and how little
think of the
other
person.
'
Twairis
Notebook
is
likely
that if more
time
been
taken,
in the iirst place,
the
would
have been
made
and
this
ceaseless
and
repairing
would
be
necessary
now.
But if you
a world or a
house,
are
nearly
sure to
find out
and by, that you
have
left
a
towhead,
or
a
broom-closet,
some
other
little convenience,
and there, which
has
got
be
supplied, no
matter
how
much
or vexation it may cost.
'
'
on
the Mississippi
for climate,
and
for
society.
'
Whe
¥lmX
FaPFi^
Spsup
Moncure
D. Conway,
clergyman
and
author, wrote:
Every
day we
saw
Charles Dudley Warner [the writer who
collabora-
ted
with
Twain
on The
Gilded
Age] and his wife,
near
neighbors,
and
in
the evening
Rev. Dr.
Twichell
came
in. In
no country
have
I
met
a
more
delightful
man
in conversation
than Twichell. and his
ministerial adven-
tures
if
printed
would add
a
rich
volume
to
the
library
of
American
humor.
Mrs.
Clemens
was
not only
beautiful
but a gracious hostess; her
clear
candid
eyes
saw
everything,
her
tact was
perfect,
and
if
she entered,
the
great strong
Mark in
his stormiest mood would
alight
as
if a
gentle
bird
in
her
hand.
George
P.
Lathrop
told of
an
evening
with
Twain's
neighbor,
Harriet Beecher Stowe:
One most agreeable
memory
will
long
remain
with me,
of
an
evening
spent in Mrs.
Stowe's company
at
the house of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens.
Among other
things
there was after-dinner
talk
of the days
preceding
the war, and
of the underground railroad
. . . Mrs. Stowe gave her
reminiscences
of
exciting incidents
in
her life
on
the
Ohio border at
that
time,
and
told
of
the
frightful letters
she received
from
the
South
after
publishing
her great
novel [Uncle Tom's Cabin]
. .
.
To
give
an idea
of
the extremes
to
which
these
missives
proceeded,
Mrs.
Stowe
mentioned
that
one of them, duly
forwarded to her by United
States mail, enclosed
a
negro's ear
Katy Leary, Mrs.
Clemens'
maid,
recalled
Mrs. Stowe's
more
eccentric
moments:
She used
to
come to
the
Clemens a
great deal in the old
Hartford
days.
She kind
of
lost
her mind
a little bit when she
got
older,
but
she
was
very
nice. She
used
to
go
out every
day for
a walk
and
every one
she'd
meet, she'd
stop
and talk with
them
very pleasant
and
ask
them if
they'd
read her
book
Uncle
Tom's
Cabin,
and
some of them
would
have
a
blemk
face on,
and
didn't
know
what she was talking
about. Really,
she'd
say,
you
should
read
it. What's your
name
and
address?
I'll write
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to
my
publishers
and
have them
send
you
a copy
right away.
Then,
of
course,
everybody would
say they
hadn't
read
it, because
they
all wanted
one
of
them books
free
She
used
to write
her autograph in
all
her
books,
and
her autograph
was:
Love
the Lord
and
do good.
That's
pretty,
ain't
it?
Love the Lord and do
good.
In their huge new establishment, the
Clemenses
had
a
staff
of seven servants, some of
whom
were
described
by
Clara,
Twain's
second daughter:
Our
butler,
George,
was
colored
and
full
of
personality.
He
had
come
one
day
to wash
windows
and
remained
for
eighteen
years. Everyone in
the family liked him, although the only time
he
looked after
anyone's
needs
at the
table
was when
a
large
company
of
guests
were
invited
to
dine.
On
such
occasions he
could
rise
to great
heights
of professional serv-
ice and throb
with
feverish
excitement,
as
if
he
were
acting
a
big
role
on
the stage.
When only members of the
family
were seated
at
table,
how-
ever,
he
preferred listening
to
the conversation
to
passing them
food.
He
explained that the
intellectual inspiration he
received
in
the
dining-room
saved
him from
the
bad
effects
of life
in
the inferior
atmosphere
of
the
kitchen.
Often did
we
hear
a
prompt laugh filling
the
room from
a
dark
figure at ease
against the wall, before the rest
of
us
at
table had expressed
our
amusement
at
one
of
Father's
remarks.
George
was
a great
addition
to
the
family
and
afforded
Father almost
as
much
amusement as Father
did George.
Another
pronounced
character
in the
household
was
the coachman
[Patrick McAleer]. He
persuaded me
that
if
I
curried
the
calf every
morn-
ing
and
put
a
saddle
and bridle on him he
would turn
into
a
horse.
The
idea
seemed
marvelous to
me
and I was
always
ready
to believe
in mira-
cles, even
at
the
age
of six.
. . .
A
third
servant
in
the house with
plenty
of
imagination was
Mother's
maid,
Katy Leary.
She and the
butler
used
to
fight in such
picturesque
language
that
Father
often
threatened
to
put
them in print.
Yet,
in
spite
of the
descriptive names they
called each
other
when
quarreling,
they
were
at other
times
the
best
of
friends.
Katy
Leary
gave
a
below-stairs view of
the daily
routine:
Well,
the day
would begin
like
this :
We
had
breakfast about
half-past
seven,
and at that time
the
family
—
meaning
Mr.
and
Mrs. Clemens
never
came down
for
their breakfast
till about
eleven
o'clock.
They didn't
get
up
so
early,
but
I used
to
go
m
when
Mrs. Clemens
would ring
for
me
and
brushed her
hair and
helped
her dress
and
then they
would
come
down to
breakfast
say
about
eleven o'clock,
and then Mr.
Clemens
(he
never eat
any
lunch,
you
know),
he'd
go to
his
billiard
room
to write.
He
left strict
orders not to
have anybody
disturb him—
oh, for
nothing
Some
days
he
worked
harder than
others
;
but
every
day
not
to
disturb
him
as
he
was
a
very
busy
writer.
Well,
he would
appear
again about
half-past five
(they
had
dinner at
six o'clock
in those
days).
He'd come
down
and
get
ready for
dinner
and Mrs.
Clemens
would get ready too.
Mrs.
Clemens
always put
on
a
lovely dress for
dinner, even
when
we
was
alone,
and
they
always
had
music during
dinner.
They had
a
music box
in
the
hall,
and George
would
set that
going
at
dinner
every day.
Played
nine
pieces,
that
music box did ; and he
always
set
it
going every
night.
They
brought
it from
Geneva,
and it
was
wonderful. It
was
foreign.
It
used to
play
all
by
itself
—
it
wasn't
like
a
Victrola,
you
know. It just
went
with
a
crank.
Katy
Leary
s
Mhjwrrr
lsi
^'^
>'^
f
fK
f^
L^L^
i
Twain
designed
this chart to record
his
difficulties with
the telephone.
Clara
with
her
calf,
Jumbo.
C9
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human
is
pathetic.
secret source
of
Humor itself
not
joy
but
sorrow.
is
no
humor in
heaven.
'
'
the
Equator
B
§©usefyl
©f Talente
Mrs.
Clemens'
nephew,
Jervis
Langdon, described
a
long-established
practice in
the
Clemens household
One of the
pleasantest
neighborhood
customs
that grew
up
in
the
Hart-
ford
home
was the
gathering,
of
an
evening, around
the
library
fire
while
Mr.
Clemens
read aloud. He
liked
stirring
poetry,
which
he
read
admir-
ably,
sometimes rousing his little
audience
to
excitement and
cheers.
Shakespeare
remained,
by whichever name,
the
love
of
his
heart,
but
he
made his
own
unique programs,
and
once mischievously slipped
between
two
of the
deathless
sonnets
a
particularly charming reading of
a
little
set
of verses accidentally
come
into his hands, that
had
been
painstakingly
written
for
a
school
periodical
by
one of the
children.
The
listeners
invariably
demanded
at
the
end
three
favorites,
How
They Brought the
Good
News from Ghent
to
Aix,
Up
at a
Villa,
Down
in the
City,
and
for climax, The Battle
of
Naseby,
which
he
delivered
with
supreme
eloquence
and
emotion.
J^
c^/^^-e
-5-.=-<
:?&.
{or
The Prince and the
Pauper.
spell it
Vinci and
pronounce
Vinchy ;
foreigners
always
better than
they
pronounce.
'
'
Innocents
Abroad
make
the
man.
people have
little or no
in society.
'
'
Maxims of Mark
But
Twain
was
not
the
only
performer
in the
household.
In
his
autobiography, he
told
of his children's early dramatic endeavors:
Susy
[Twain's
oldest
daughter] and her
nearest
neighbor,
Margaret
Warner, often
devised tragedies
and
played
them
in the
school
room,
with little
Jean's
help
—with closed doors—
no
admission
to
anybody.
The
chief characters
were always
a
couple of
queens,
with
a
quarrel in stock
historical
when
possible,
but
a
quarrel anyway, even
if it had to be
a
work
of the
imagination.
Jean
always
had one
function
—
only
one. She
sat
at
a
little
table about
a foot
high and drafted
death
warrants
for
these
queens
to
sign.
In
the course of
time
they completely
wore out
Elizabeth
and
Mary,
Queen
of Scots
—
also all of
Mrs.
Clemens's
gowns that
they
could
get
hold of
—
for
nothing charmed these monarchs like
having
four
or five feet of gown
dragging
on
the floor
behind.
Mrs. Clemens
and I
spied
upon
them
more than once, which
was
treacherous conduct—
but
I don't
think
we
very seriously
minded
that.
It
was
grand
to
see
the
queens
stride back
and
forth and
reproach
each
other
in
three-or-four-syllable
words
dripping with blood
;
and it was
pretty
to
see
how
tranquil
Jean
was
through
it
all.
Familiarity
with
daily
death and
carnage
had
hardened
her
to crime and
suffering
in
all their forms,
and they were
no
longer
able
to
hasten
her pulse
by
a
beat. Sometimes when there
was
a
long
interval
between
death
warrants she even leaned her head
on
her table and went
to
sleep.
. .
,
Clara
Clemens
remembered how her father sometimes took
part
in
charades
in the
parlor:
We were trying
to enact the story
of
Hero and Leander. Mark Twain
played the
part
of
the impassioned
lover obliged
to
swim across
the Hel-
lespont to
snatch
a
kiss from
his sweetheart
on
the
other
side of
the
foaming
water.
For this scene
Father
wore
a
bathing-suit,
a
straw
hat
tied under his chin with
a
big
bow, and
a
hot-water bottle
slung
around
his
chest.
Katy
Leary tells
of the
first
dramatization
of
Twain's
The
Prince and the
Pauper:
Well,
the play
was
done in the drawing-room
and
the conservatory was
the Palace
garden,
and
it looked just
like
a
real
palace.
Oh, it looked
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The actresses
in
a
phiy
by
Su.sv
CU-incns are
(left
to
liglii):
Clara.
Charles
Dudley
Warner's
niece
Margaret,
Jean
Clemens, Susy,
and
another
neighbor,
Fanny
Friese.
brilliant
and lovely All the audience
set
in the
living-room
and
dining-
room. Mr.
Clemens
was in it, too, and
he
was so funny,
just his walk was
funny
—
the way
he walked
He made
out
he
was quite
lame
when he
was
walking
out in
the
play.
(He
was
Miles
Hendon.)
Then
he
rang
the
bell
for
me
to
bring
the pitcher
of water in,
and he
poured it out the wrong
way—
by
the handle and
not
by
the
nose
—
and of
course
that took down
the house
They roared at him
when
it
was
over. Then
he
made
a
few
remarks, telling how his wife
got
up this thing
to
surprise him,
and it
did
surprise
him, because
it
was
the most wonderfully
got
up thing
he'd
ever
seen.
Ot
all
the Clemens children, Susy was perhaps the most talented,
as Clara
recognized:
My
elder
sister,
Susy . . .
was
altogether
the
genius
among
the children.
She
had
marked
talent
for
writing
and
composed
a
charming
little
play
when
she
was
not
more
than
fourteen
or
fifteen.
We
performed
it one
Thanksgiving
night for
a
large company
of
invited friends,
and all
agreed
that it
was
full
of originality.
Susy Clemens poses
as
the
prince in Mark
Twain's
The Prince
and
the Pauper.
Clara
took the part
ot
Lady
Jane
Grey.
Susy at
thirteen
worked on
a
biography
of
her
famous
father, which
began:
We
are
a
very
happy
family.
We consist
of Papa,
Mamma,
Jean,
Clara
and me. It is
papa
I
am writing
about,
and
I
shall have
no
trouble
in
not
knowing what to say
about him,
as
he is
a
very striking
character.
Papa's
appearance has
been described many times, but
very
incorrectly.
He
has beautiful
gray
hair,
not
any too
thick
or
any too
long,
but
just
right;
a
Roman nose,
which greatly improves
the
beauty of
his features;
kind
blue eyes,
and
a
small
mustache.
He
has
a
very
good
figure
—
in
short,
he
is an extraordinarily fine
looking
man.
All his
features are
per-
fect, except
that
he
hasn't
extraordinary teeth.
His
complexion
is very
fair,
and
he doesn't
ware
a
beard.
He
is a very good man and
a
very
funny
one.
He has
got
a
temper,
but
we
all
of
us
have
in
this
family.
He is the
loveliest
man I
ever saw
or ever
hope
to
see
—
and oh,
so absent-minded.
He
does tell
perfectly
delightful
stories. Clara and
I
used
to
sit
on
each
arm of his
chair
and listen
while he
told us stories about the
pictures
on
the
wall.
.
. .
To
have nothing
the matter
with you and no habits
is
pretty
tame,
pretty color
It
is just
the
way
a
saint
feels, I reckon ; it is at
least the way
he looks.
'
Europe
and
Elsewhere
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In
the
billiard room
of his ram-
bling Hartford house, Twain
wrote
some
of his greatest
works,
including
The
Adventures
of
Tom
Sawyer,
Life on
the
Mis-
sissippi, and
Huckleberry
Finn.
In
a
photograph
taken
after
he
left
Hartford,
Twain
is shown
indulging in
his
favorite
pastime
with
Louise
Paine,
daughter
of
his
biographer,
A.
B, Paine.
Of her
father's
passion for
bil-
liards,
Susy
once commented,
it
seemed
to
rest
his
head.
At another time
she wrote:
He is
as much of
a
philosopher
as
anything,
I think. I
think
he
could
have
done
a great deal in this direction if
he had
studied
while young,
for
he
seems
to
enjoy reasoning
out
things, no
matter
what ;
in a
great
many
such directions
he
has
greater ability
than
in the gifts
which have
made
him
famous.
Twain
found
his house admirable
for family life and
entertaining,
but a
difficult one
in
which
to
write—
even
letters.
He
wrote
to
Mrs.
Fairbanks:
As
soon
as you departed, Livy arranged
a
writing
table
near the
con-
servatory,
so
that
I could
have
the writing conveniences I
had
been
wail-
ing
about so much.
She
put
a
box,
called a
writing
desk,
on
this
table
a
box
which
opens in the middle
&
discloses
two
closed
lids;
inside
of
these lids
are paper,
pen, stamps, ink,
& stamped
envelopes.
To
get
either
of
those
lids
open
pushes patience
to
the
verge
of
profanity, &
then you
find that
the
article
you
want is under
the
other
lid.
She
put
a delicate
glass
vase
on top
of that box
&
arranged
pots
of flowers round about
it.
Lastly
she leaned
a
large
picture
up
against
the
front of the
table.
Then
she
stood off
&
beamed
upon
her
work & observed,
with
the
Almighty,
that
it
was
good.
So
she
went
aloft
to
her nap with
a
satisfied
heart &
a
soul at
peace.
When
she
returned,
two
hours
later,
I had
accomplished
a
letter,
&
the
evidences of it were
all
around. The large picture has
gone
to
the
shop
to
be re-framed, the writing desk
has
returned to the
devil
from whom
it
must
have come, but
the
flower pots & the
glass
vase
are
beyond the
help
of man.
. .
. Since
that day I
have
gone
back to
pre-
carious letter-writing,
with
a
pencil,
upon encumbered surfaces &
under
harassment
&
persecution,
as
before. But convenience
me
no more
wo-
men's
conveniences,
for
I
will
none
of
them.
He
found professional writing
equally
difficult.
Lathrop
reported:
One would naturally in such
a
place expect
to find
some
perfection
of
a study,
a
literary work-room,
and
that has indeed been provided, but
the
unconventional
genius
of
the author could not
reconcile itself
to a
surrounding
the
charms of which distracted
his
attention.
The study re-
mains,
its deep
window
giving
a
seductive outlook
above the
library,
but
Mr.
Clemens
goes
elsewhere.
Pointing
to a
large
divan extending
along
the
two
sides
of a
right-angled corner,
That
was
a
good idea, he
said, which
I got
from
something
I
saw
in
a
Syrian monastery; but I
found it
was
much more
comfortable
to lie there and
smoke
than
to stay
at my
desk. And
then
these
windows—
I was
constantly getting
up
to
look
at
the
view ; and
when
one
of our
beautiful
heavy snow-falls came
in
winter,
I
couldn't
do
anything
at
all
except
gaze
at
it.
So
he has
moved
still
higher
upstairs
into
the billiard room, and there
writes at a
table
placed
in such
wise that
he can
see
nothing
but the wall in front
of
him
and
a
couple
of shelves
of
books.
A
reporter
from
the
New
York World
described
the billiard room:
This room
is
a
treat.
A
big billiard
table with
black and
gold
legs
stands in the middle of
it.
. . .
Mark Twain's
desk
stands in
the southern
corner
piled with business papers.
Shelves of books line
the
walls
of
72
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this
angle. Parleyings
with Certain People
rubs
covers with the
United
States Newspaper Directory, and
a
commentary
on the Old Testament
is
neighborly and shows no
ill-feeling
towards
Ruskin, who stands
near at
hand
in
a red
binding. The ground glass
of the nearest window is
deco-
rated with
a
beerstein,
gules,
two long-stemmed
pipes
rampant
and other
devices
of
festivity. Pipes and
boxes
and
jars of
tobacco are
tucked
in
here
and
there wherever there is
room.
The pipes are of
corn-cob
and
burned
to
a
jet
black
by
much usage.
. .
.
The room
presented
housekeeping
problems for
Katy
Leary:
Now,
I must tell
you all
about them precious manuscripts.
Mr.
Clemens
always
did all
his writing
up
in the Billiard Room. He
had
a
table there,
you know, and Mrs. Clemens used
to go
up and
dust
that table
every
morning and arrange his
manuscript
and writing,
if
he didn't arrange
it
himself,
which
he
sometimes
used to
do.
He
took
good care of
it
—
he
thought
he
did,
anyway
Oh,
he was
very particular
Nobody
was
allowed
to touch them manuscripts
besides
Mrs.
Clemens.
The reason
is
explained
by
Twain's method
of
work:
My billiard table is stacked up
with books
relating
to
the
Sandwich
Islands: the walls are
upholstered
with
scraps of paper penciled with
notes
drawn from
them.
I
have
saturated
myself
with
knowledge
of that
unimaginably
beautiful
land
and
that most
strange and
fascinating
people.
And I
have
begun
a
story.
Paine observed that the
room
was
also
used for
its
original
purpose:
Every
Friday
evening,
or oftener,
a
small
party of
billiard-lovers
gath-
ered,
and
played
until
a late
hour, told
stories,
and
smoked
till the room
was
blue, comforting themselves
with hot
Scotch
and general good-fellow-
ship. Mark Twain
always
had
a
genuine
passion
for billiards.
He was
never
tired
of
the game. He could
play
all night. He
would
stay
till
the
last
man
gave
out
from
sheer
weariness; then
he
would
go on knocking
the balls about alone.
He
liked
to
invent
new
games
and new
rules for
old games, often
inventing
a
rule
on the spur
of the moment to fit some
particular shot or position on
the
table. It amused
him highly
to do
this,
to
make the rule
advantage his own
play,
and to pretend
a
deep
indigna-
tion
when
his
opponents disqualified his
rulings and
rode
him
down.
The
difference between
the
right word
and
the
almost
right
w
is the
difference between
lightning
and
the
lightning
bug.
'
'As to the
Adjective:
when
in
doubt, strike it
out.
'
'
The Tragedy
of
Pudd'nhead
Wilson
Twain's bed
came
from
Venice,
Twain
always
rose
late in the
morning,
and did
much
of his
work
in
bed. In
this
photograph,
the crumpled pillow
and the
author's
unruly hair
combined
to give the
illusion
of
a
small
figure crouching at his ear
(see
sketch).
Viewing
the picture,
Twain
remarked,
People
often
ask me
where
I get my ideas.
. . . A little imp whispers in my
ear and
tells
me
what
to say.**
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.T?,;>?^4,i
Childe
Hassam sketched
the
veranda
known
as
the Ombra lor Harper's
Monthly
in
1896.
Tropical
plants
and
a
tiny
fountain
embellished
the
conservatory
o/ the Hartford
house,
where the
Clemenses entertained
and the children
put on their theatrical
performances.
holy passion of
Friendship
of
so
sweet
and steady and loyal
enduring
a nature
that
it
last
through a
whole
lifetime,
not
asked
to lend
money.
'
'
Tragedy of
Pudd'nhead
Wilson
is everything. The
was
once
a
bitter almond
;
is nothing
but
with
a
college
education.
Tragedy of Pudd'nhead
Wilson
a
good thing Adam had
he
said
a
good
thing
he
knew
had
said it before.
'
'
Twain's
Notebook
Albert Bigelow
Paine described
the
Clemenses' rigorous social life:
Company came
:
distinguished
guests
and the
old neighborhood
circles.
Dinner-parties
were
more frequent
than
ever, and
they
were
likely
to be
brilliant
affairs. The
best
minds,
the
brightest wits gathered around
Mark
Twain's table.
Booth, Barrett, Irving,
Sheridan, Sherman,
Howells,
Aldrich: they
all assembled,
and many more. There
was
always
someone
on
the
way
to
Boston
or
New
York
who addressed himself for
the
day
or
the
night,
or
for
a
brief call, to
the
Mark
Twain
fireside.
Katy
Leary
told of their lavish
manner
of entertaining:
I always
helped
George wait
on
table if there
was
over twelve
at
the
dinner. Mr.
Clemens
wouldn't
be
expected, at
a
regular
dinner
party,
in
them
days,
to get
up
and
walk
around and talk—the way he
used
to
later
on
; but
he did walk
about
sometimes at dinner when the
family
was
all
alone
—walked
and talked. He
loved that.
When
Mr.
Clemens used to
get
up
and walk
and talk
at
the dinner table, he used to
always
be
wav-
ing
his
napkin
to
kind
of
illustrate
what
he was
saying,
I
guess. He seemed
to
be
able
to
talk
better when
he
was
walking
than when he was
settin'
down.
. . .
Well,
at those dinners,
as
I was telling you,
we
had soup
first, of
course,
and
then the beef
or
ducks,
you
know,
and then
we'd
have
wine
with
our cigars,
and we'd have sherry,
claret,
and
champagne, maybe
—Now
what
else?
Oh,
yes We'd
always
have
creme de
menthe and most
always
charlotte
russe, too. Then we'd sometimes
have
Nesselrode
pudding
and
very
often ice
cream
for
the
most
elegant dinners.
No,
never
plain ordi-
nary
ice cream—
we
always
had our ice cream
put
up
in some
wonderful
shapes—
like
flowers
or
cherubs,
little angels
—
all
different
kinds
and
different
shapes
and flavors, and
colors—
oh
everything lovely
And
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then
after the company
had
eat
up
all
the
little
ice-cream
angels, the
ladies
would
all
depart
into the
living
room
and
the gentlemen
would sit
(lounge, I think
they
called it)
around
the table and
have
a
little
more
champagne
(maybe)
while we passed
the
coffee to
the
ladies in
the
draw-
ing room,
where
they'd
drink
it and
then
set down
and gossip awhile.
Clara
recalled:
When dinner
parties
were
given,
Susy
and
I
used to
sit on the
stairs
and
listen to
the broken
bits
of
conversation coming from
the
dining room.
We
got
into this
habit
because we
used
to
hear so
many
peals
of laugh-
ter in
the
distance that
we would
run
to
discover
the
cause
of
all the
mirth.
Almost
always
it
turned
out
that
Father
was
telling
a
funny
story.
Now,
it happened
that
a
few times
Father
had told the same
story
on various
occasions
when guests
were
dining
at
the house
and
we
calculated
that
each
time the
meal was
about
half
over. So
we used to
announce
to
each
other, Father is
telling
the
beggar story;
they must
have
reached
the
meat
course. When
he
discovered
that
his children were taking
their
turn at
having jokes about
him,
he
laughed
as
much
as
if we
had been
very witty.
Mrs. Thomas
Bailey Aldrich,
wile of the critic
and
poet,
described
one
memorable
winter evening:
It
was
voted
at
dinner
that the company
would not
disband until
the
genial morn
appeared, and
that there should be at
midnight
a
wassail
brewed.
The
rosy apples
roasted
at
the
open
fire,
the
wine
and
sugar
added,
and
the
ale
—but
at
this
point
Mrs. Clemens
said,
Youth,
we
have
no ale. There was
a
rapid
exit
by
Mr.
Clemens,
who
reappeared
in
a
moment in his historic
sealskin
coat
and
cap,
but
still wearing
his low-
cut evening
shoes.
He
said he
wanted
a
walk,
and
was
going
to
the village
for the ale,
and should
shortly return
with the
ingredient. Deaf, abso-
lutely
deaf,
to
Mrs.
Clemens's
earnest voice,
that
he
should
at
least
wear
overshoes
that
snowy
night,
he
disappeared.
In
an
incredibly short
time
he
reappeared,
excited
and
hilarious,
with
his
rapid
walk
in
the
frosty
air—very
wet
shoes,
and
no
cap. . . .
Mr.
Clemens
was
sent for
George,
with
Mrs. Clemens's
instructions
that
George
should carefully
retrace
Mr. Clemens's
footsteps
in the quest
for the
mislaid
cap, and
also to see
that
Mr.
Clemens
put
on
dry
shoes.
When
the
culprit
returned, the wet
low shoes
had
been
exchanged
for
a
pair
of
white
cowskin slippers,
with the
hair outside,
and clothed in them,
with
most sober
and
smileless
face,
he
twisted
his
angular body
into
all
the
strange
contortions
known
to
the
dancing
darkies of the South.
In
this
wise
the
last
day
of the
joyous,
jubilant visit
came
to the close. Un-
troubled
by
the
flight
of
time I
can
still hear
a
soft
and
gentle
tone,
Youth,
O
Youth
for so she
always called
him.
Clara
describes
their Christmas
celebrations:
When
Christmas
Eve arrived at
last, we
children
hung
up
our stock-
ings
in
the
schoolroom
next to
our
nursery,
and did it
with great ceremony.
Mother
always
recited
the
thrilling
little poem,
Twas the night before
Christmas, when
all
through the
house,
etc.
Father
sometimes
dressed
up as
Santa
Claus
and,
after running about
a
dimly lighted room (we
al-
ways
turned
the
gas
down
low),
trying to
warm
himself
after
the
cold
drive through
the
snow,
he
sat down
and told some
of his
experiences
on
the
way.
Thomas
Bailey Aldrich
George Washington
Cable
William
Dean
Howells
Three
prominent
literary fig-
ures of
the time
were
often
guests at
the Hartford
house.
Novelists Aldrich
and How-
ells both edited
the Atlantic
Monthly;
Cable,
the noted
southern
writer, several times
took
to the
profitable
lec-
ture
circuit
with
Twain.
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Twain
in
his
thirties.
Clara (left)
holds
the
family
dog,
Flash,
while
Jean
and Susy
look
on.
Olivia
L. Clemens.
. . .
always
drew
a
sigh
of
when the holidays
were over.
reason was
that
they
social festivities
that were
a
burden to
him,
if
he
happened
to
be
the mood of
writing ;
and
this mood,
was
wont
to
declare,
attacked
him when some
dead
people
their
corpses
with them
a
long
visit. '
'
'
Clemens, My
Father,
Mark
Twain
isn't
a
Parallel of
itude but thinks it would
been
the
Equator
it
had had its rights.
'
the Equator
In
a
letter
written
to Susy on
Christmas morning, Twain
played
Santa Claus:
Palace of St.
Nicholas in the Moon
Christmas Morning
My Dear Susie
Clemens:
I have
received
and read all the letters which
you
and
your
little
sister
have written me
by the
hand of
your
mother and
your
nurses
;
I
have also
read those which
you
little people have written me with
your
own hands
—for although you did
not
use any characters
that
are
in grown
peoples'
alphabet,
you
use the
characters that all
children
in
all
lands on earth
and
in the twinkling
stars
use
;
and
as all
my
subjects in the moon are
children and
use
no
character
but that,
you
will
easily
understand
that
I
can
read
your
and
your
baby
sister's
jagged
and
fantastic marks with-
out any
trouble at
all.
But I
had
trouble
with
those
letters which
you
dictated
through
your mother and the nurses, for I am
a
foreigner
and
cannot
read English
writing
well.
You
will
find that I
made no mistakes
about the
things
which
you
and
the
baby
ordered
in your
own letters
I
went
down
your chimney
at
midnight
when
you
were
asleep and
delivered them all myself
—
and
kissed
both of you, too,
because
you
are
good
children.
. .
.
There
was
a
word or
two in your mama's
letter
which I couldn't
be
certain
of.
I
took
it
to be
trunk full of doll's
clothes.
Is that it? I will
call
at
your kitchen
door
about nine o'clock this morning
to
inquire. But
I must not see anybody and I must not speak to
anybody
but you. When
the
kitchen door
bell
rings
George
must
be
blindfolded
and
sent
to
open
the door.
Then
he
must go
back to the dining-room
or
the
china
closet
and take
the
cook
with
him. You must
tell George he
must walk
on tiptoe
and
not speak
—otherwise
he
will
die some day. Then you must
go up
to
the
nursery
and stand
on
a
chair or the nurse's
bed
and
put
your
ear
to
the
speaking-tube
that
leads down
to
the
kitchen and when
I
whistle
through
it
you
must
speak
in the
tube
and
say,
Welcome,
Santa
Claus
Then
I
will
ask
whether
it
was
a
trunk
you
ordered
or
not. If
you
say
it was, I
shall
ask
what color
you
want
the trunk to be.
Your
mama will
help
you to name
a
nice color and
then
you
must tell
me
every
single
thing in detail which
you want the trunk to contain.
. .
.
Then
you
must
go down into
the
library
and
make
George
close
all
the doors that
open
into
the
main
hall,
and everybody must keep
still
for
a
little while.
I will
go to
the
moon
and
get
those
things .
. .
Your
loving
SANTA
CLAUS
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In
1885,
Twain was
fifty.
Paine
summarized
his
position:
So
Samuel
Clemens
had
reached
the
half-century
mark; reached
it in
what
seemed the fullness
of
success from
every
viewpoint.
If
he
was not
yet
the
foremost
American
man
of
letters,
he
was
at
least
the
most
widely
known
—
he
sat
upon
the
highest
mountain-top.
Furthermore,
it seemed
to
him
that
fortune
was
showering
her
gifts
into
his
lap.
His
unfortunate
investments
were
now only
as the
necessary
experiments
that
had led
him
to larger
successes. As
a
publisher,
he was
already
the most
con-
spicuous
in the
world,
and
he
contemplated
still larger
ventures:
a type-
setting
machine
patent,
in which
he had invested,
and
now largely
con-
trolled,
he regarded
as
the chief
invention
of
the
age,
absolutely
certain
to
yield
incalculable
wealth. His
connection
with
the
Grant
family
[Twain's
firm had
published the General's
memoirs]
had
associated him
with
an enterprise
looking
to
the building
of a
railway
from Constanti-
nople
to
the Persian
Gulf.
Charles A. Dana,
of
the
Sun, had
put
him in
the
way
of
obtaining
for publication
the life
of
the Pope,
Leo
XHI,
officially
authorized
by
the Pope
himself, and this he
regarded
as
a
certain fortune.
Twain
had most ol his
money
invested in the
Paige
type-setting
machine and
the
Charles
L.
Webster Publishing
Company. Katy Leary
tells
o(
his hopes
for the machine:
Well,
now
I'll tell
you about the
type-setting machine. That's
a long
story. Mr.
Clemens' heart
was
just
set on that, he believed in
it
so. He
was expecting
such wonderful
things from it.
Why, he thought
he
could
buy
all
New
York.
He
was
asking
how
much
it
would
take to
buy
all
the
railroads
in
New York,
and all the
newspapers,
too
—buy
everything
in
New
York
on account
of
that type-setting machine.
He
thought he'd
make
millions
and own
the
world,
because he
had
such
faith in it.
That
was
Mr. Clemens'
way.
Howells
explains
the
eventual
end of these hopes:
He
was
. .
.
absorbed
in
the
perfection
of
a
type-setting machine, which
he was
paying
the
inventor
a
salary
to bring to
a
perfection
so
expensive
that
it
was practically
impracticable.
We
were
both
printers
by
trade,
and
I
could
take the same interest
in
this
wonderful piece of
mechanism
that
he
could
;
and it
was so
truly wonderful that
it did
everything
but
walk
and talk. Its ingenious
creator was so bent
upon
realizing
the
highest ideal
in
it
that
he produced
a
machine of quite unimpeachable
efficiency.
But it
was
so
costly,
when
finished, that it
could
not
be
made
for less than twenty
thousand dollars, if
the
parts were made
by
hand.
This
sum was prohibitive
of its
introduction,
unless
the
requisite capital
could
be
found
for
making
the parts
by
machinery,
and
Clemens
spent
many months
in
vainly
trying
to
get
this
money
together. In
the mean-
time simpler machines had
been
invented and
the
market
filled,
and
his
investment
of
three
hundred
thousand
dollars
in the beautiful
miracle
remained
permanent
but
not
profitable.
I once went with him
to
witness
its
performance, and
it did
seem
to me
the
last word in
its
way, but
it
had
been
spoken too exquisitely,
too
fastidiously.
.
. .
'
'
One
thing
at
a
time
is my
motto
—
and
just
play
that
thing
for
all
it
is worth,
even if
it's
only
two pair and
a
jack.
A Connecticut
Yankee in
King
Arthur's
Court
'
There
are two
times in
a
man
's
life when he
should
not
speculate
when
he
can
't afiford it
and
when
he
can.
'
'
Following the
Equator
The
Paige
typesetter.
The man
with
a
new idea
is
a
Crank
until
the idea succeed
Following
the Equator
Twain
confided
to his notebook
his
exasperation with
the
machine
and
its inventors:
December
20, 1890.
About
three
weeks
ago
the
machine
was pronounced
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Charles
L. Webster,
Twain's
partner.
'
'
Every
one
is
a
moon
and has
a
dark
side
which
he
never
shows to
anybody.
'
'
Following
the
Equator
finished
by
Paige, for certainly the
half-dozenth
time
in the
past
twelve
months. Then
it
transpired
—
I mean it
was
discovered
—that
North had
failed
to
inspect
the
period,
and
it sometimes
refused to
perform
properly.
But to
correct that
error would take
just
one
day,
and
only
one day—the
merest trifle in the world.
I
said
this
sort
of mere trifle
had
interfered
often
before and had always
cost ten times as
much
time
and money
as
their
loose
calculations
promised.
Paige
and Davis
knew
(they always
know,
never guess) that this correction would
cost
but
one single
day.
Well,
the
best part of two weeks went
by. I
dropped in
(last
Monday
noon) and
they
were
still tinkering.
Still
tinkering,
but just
one hour,
now,
would
see
the machine
at work,
blemishless, and
never
stop
again
for
a
generation ; the hoary old song that has been sung to weariness in my
ears
by
these frauds
and
liars
Twain's
publishing house
was
also in
distress, for
the
much-vaunted
life
of
the
Pope
had proved
a
commercial failure. Clara wrote:
A
few
years
before
he
had sunk most of his earnings in the Charles
L.
Webster Publishing
Company, for
a
time a
successful concern. Owing
to bad business years,
bad
investments and
mismanagement, however,
the
publishing house
was
rapidly
losing
ground.
Its fall would
cause
my
father
financial losses, grave losses, indeed. Therefore, it
was
decided
we
should
go
to
Europe,
where
we
could
live
more
reasonably
until
some-
thing
should be done
to
improve our
straitened
situation.
Few
of us
can
stand
prosperity.
Another
man 's,
I mean.
'
'
Following
the
Equator
(yk,r7>
_.«V^^.^
.^.^^^^ X^>.,
^^-^.^ G^/:.
^A^
ri^.
J^yXr^^:7=^r?.,
Twain's
firm, which published
U. S.
Grant's
war memoirs,
paid
a $200,000 check to his
^vidow
as a
first
royalty.
The
canceled check
is owned by the
Players
Club
in New
York.
'
'
Paige
and I always
meet
on
effusively
affectionate
terms,
and
yet he knows,
perfectly well,
that
if I had
him
in a steel
trap
I would
shut
out
all
human
succor and
watch
that trap,
until
he
died.
'
'
Mark Twain's
Notebook
In
1891,
the family left for Europe. Paine
described
their last
day
in Hartford:
. . .
the
maintenance
was
far
too
costly for his present
and
prospective
income.
The
house
with
its associations
of
seventeen
incomparable
years
must
be
closed. A great period had ended.
. . .
The
day
came for departure
and
the
carriage
was
at
the door. Mrs.
Clemens
did
not come imme-
diately.
She
was
looking
into
the
rooms,
bidding
a
kind
of
silent
good-by
to the
home
she
had
made and
to
all its memories.
Three
years later, Twain's
publishing house
went
bankrupt.
On
April
20,
1894,
the
Hartford Courant
reported:
MARK TWAIN'S FAILURE
Talk of
the Street—
Some Rumors set
Right.
The announcement
in
yesterday's
Courant
of
the
assignment
of
Mark
Twain's
publishing house of
Charles
L. Webster
&
Co., caused
a
great
deal of talk
about
town, yesterday. The expressions
of
sympathy
and regret
are universal,
for Mr. Clemens,
as
a
citizen of
Hartford, has
made
a
host
of friends
here,
and
his
hospitality
has
been
proverbial.
So many
idle
and
unfounded stories
were
in
circulation
that it seems
proper to say,
by
authority,
that
the
beautiful family
residence of
the
Clemenses
on
Farmington
avenue, in this
city,
is and
always
has
been
the property
of
Mrs.
Clemens.
The land
was bought
and
the
house
built
out of the
private fortune which was her own
inheritance.
After
a
brief
visit
to
the Hartford
house
in
1895,
Twain
wrote
to
his wife:
When
I
arrived
in
town
I
did
not
want
to
go
near the house,
& I
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didn't
want
to
go
anywhere or see
anybody. I
said
to
myself, If
I
may
be spared
it
I
will never
live in
Hartford again.
But as
soon
as
I
entered
this front
door I was
seized
with a furious
desire
to
have
us
all
in this
house
again
&
right away,
& never
go outside
the
grounds
any
more
forever
—
certainly never
again
to
Europe.
How
ugly, tasteless,
repulsive,
are
all
the
domestic interiors
I
have
ever
seen
in
Europe
compared with
the perfect
taste of this
ground
floor,
with its
delicious
dream
of
harmonious
color,
&
its all-pervading
spirit
of
peace
&
serenity &
deep
contentment. You did it all,
&
it speaks
of
you
&
praises
you
eloquently
&
unceasingly.
It
is
the loveliest
home
that ever was.
I
had no faintest idea
of
what
it
was
like.
I
supposed
I had, for I
have
seen it in its wraps
and disguises several
times
in
the
past
three
years
; but
it was
a
mistake
; I
had
wholely
forgotten
its
olden
aspect.
And so,
when
I
stepped in at
the front
door
&
was
suddenly
confronted
by
all its richness
& beauty
minus wraps and
concealments,
it
almost took
my
breath away.
Katy had
every
rug
&
picture
&
orna-
ment
&
chair
exactly where
they had always
belonged, the
place
was
bewitchingly bright
&
splendid
&
homelike
& natural,
&
it seemed as
if
I had
burst
awake
out
of
a
hellish
dream, &
had never been away, &
that
you
would come drifting
down
out
of
those
dainty
upper
regions
with the little
children tagging after
you.
Later that year
Twain set off with his wife
and
Clara on
a
lecture
tour
around the world,
leaving
Jean
and Susy in America. Katy Leary
relates:
Well,
they
started
off, and, oh, it
was
hard to let
them go
We all
felt terrible
at parting
again.
They went
to
Vancouver and
to
California
and
lectured
;
then
sailed
from California
to
Australia,
where
they
started
their
grand tour. He lectured all
around
in these
different places and
it
was
a
great success—a
triumph,
you
might call it; and
then
they came
back to London and
was
going
to
take
a
house
and
settle
down
there,
and
I
was
to meet
them
in
London with the
girls later
on.
By this
time
Susy got
kind
of
lonesome
staying
up on the farm
so
she
decided
to
go to New York
for
a
little change. She
visited
Dr. Rice
and
she
stayed
with the
Howells,
too, for
a
little visit;
then
she
come
back
to
Hartford.
. . .
The Hartford house
was
closed and she couldn't
go
there;
so
she went
to
Mrs.
Charles
Dudley
Warner's,
and I took
a
little
apartment
on
Spring
Street.
I
lived
in it
and
Susy'd
come
over
every
day
to
do
her practicing.
. . .
Well, there
was
always
a
crowd
outside in the street
listening
to
Susy
sing,
for
she had
a
wonderful voice and really we had
a concert
every
afternoon. . . .
By then we
were
getting
letters that
the
family was
nearing
Europe,
and
the next thing
we got a
cable
to
come
at
once, to
sail for London the
following Saturday,
Susy,
Jean,
and I. ... I went up
to
the Warners' and
I
found
Susy
wasn't
feeling
very
well.
She
looked
very
bad
and
says:
Oh,
Katy,
did
you
come for
me?
I
said,
Yes.
Then she
says
:
Oh,
have I got
to
leave now?
She was
really
in
an
awful state and I said :
Yes,
Susy.
Oh
she says, I
don't
think
I can
start now. Couldn't we
wait
till
evening,
when
it's cooler?
Well,
I said,
that's
all
right.
It's
pretty
hot
now
and
we can
go
in
the
evening
when
it's
cooler. This was
in
the morning, and
then
I
went
to our own
house
to
get a
few things we
needed,
and
when
I
got
back in
the
afternoon, Susy was in
a
pitiful state,
so
sick
and
full
of
fever.
CULVER
SERVICE
J.
Keppler
caricatured
Mark
Twain
on
the
lecture platform
for
Puck.
SR00n,TO
ACAIDI? Of UTSIC, FEB.
7tli
TicktU (It
^44
Ftttton
St.
aiui
17
'i
yttmtiioue
SI.
This jumping
frog
poster announced
a
Twain reading
in
Brooklyn,
1869.
'You can
straighten
a
worm,
but
the
crook
is in him
and
only waiting.
'
'
More
Maxims of Mark
79
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Susy, shortly
before
her
death.
'
All
say,
'
How hard
it
is
that
we have
to die
'
—a
strange
complaint
to come
from the mouths
of
people
who have
had
to
live.
'
The
Tragedy
of
Pudd'nhead Wilson
So I
hurried
right off
and
I got
Dr.
Porter
right
away, and he
said
she
was coming
down
with spinal meningitis. That evening she
got
very
bad. I
saw
then
she
couldn't travel.
. . .
But poor Susy
got
worse
and
worse. Mr. Langdon come to Hartford
in
the
morning
and
we
took her over
to the old home.
She was
very sick
and she wouldn't take
a
bit of medicine from anybody but me. She
wouldn't
let
the nurses
touch
her or come near
her,
so
I sat by
her night
and day—
night
and day,
I
sat Oh, it
was
a
terrible time
My heart
aches even
now
when
I
think
of it,
after all these
years.
Poor
little
Susy
She
died before
we ever
could
sail.
Shattered
by
the news,
Mark
Twain
wrote
from London:
Ah, well,
Susy
died at
home.
She
had
that
privilege.
...
If
she
had
died
in another house
—
well,
I
think
I
could not
have borne that.
To
us,
our
house
was not
unsentient matter
—
it
had a
heart,
and
a
soul, and
eyes
to
see
us
with;
and
approvals,
and
solicitudes,
and deep
sym-
pathies
;
it
was
of
us,
and
we
were in
its
confidence, and
lived
in
its
grace
and
in
the peace of
its benediction. We
never came
home
from an absence
that
its
face
did
not light
up
and speak
out
its
eloquent
welcome
—
and
we could
not
enter
it unmoved.
Almost
two years
after
Susy's
death,
Twain
wrote the following
entry
in
his notebook:
June
11,
'98.
Clara's birthday three days
ago.
Not
a
reference
to
it
has
been made
by
any
member
of the family in
my
hearing
; no
presents,
no
congratulations, no
celebrations.
Up
to
a
year
and
ten
months
ago
all
our
birthdays
from the
beginning
of the
family life
were
annually cele-
brated with
loving
preparations followed
by a
joyous and
jovial outpour-
ing of
thanksgivings.
The birthdays were milestones
on
the march of
happiness.
Then
Susy died.
All
anniversaries of whatever
sort
perished
with
her.
As
we
pass
them now they are only
gravestones. We
cannot
keep from
seeing them
as
we
go
by
but
we
can
keep silent
about
them
and
look
the other
way
and
put
them
out
of
memory as
they
sink out
of
sight
behind
us.
'
Susy
died
at the right time,
the
fortunate time
of
life,
the
happy
age—twenty-four years.
At
twenty-
four, such a
girl
has
seen
the best
of life
—
life
as
a
happy
dream.
After that
age
the
risks
begin
; responsibility
comes,
and
with
it the cares,
the
sorrows,
and
the
inevitable
tragedy.
'
'
Mark Twain's
Autobiography
ADAM
[at Eve's
grave]
:
Wheresoever
she
was,
there
was
Eden.
Eve's
Diary
80
And
later:
The
spirits
of
the dead
hallow
a
house for
me
—Susy
died in the house
we
built
in
Hartford.
Mrs.
Clemens would
never enter
it again.
But it
made
the
house dearer to
me.
I visited it
once
since
;
when
it
was tenant-
less
and
forlorn,
but to
me
it
was
a
holy
place
and
beautiful.
On
April
19,
1902,
the
following notice
appeared
in the Hartford
Courant:
MARK
TWAIN'S
HOME
FOR
SALE.
One
of
the
most
beautiful and
valuable
residences
in
this
city,
located on
Farm-
ington
Avenue, with
a
fro.ntage of
about
SOO
feet on
the
Avenue.
Large
house
with 19 rooms
conveniently
arranged
and
beautifully
decorated:
brick barn with
tenement
for
coachman; green-house.
This is a
rare
opportunity to
purchase
a
magnificent
home in the
best
residential
section
of
the
city.
For
further
particulars
regarding
price,
terms
and
permit to
examine the prem-
ises,
apply
to
Franklin
G.
Whitmore.
700
Main
street,
Hartford,
Conn.,
or
to
Wil-
liam
H.
Hoyt
&
Co.. 15 West
42nd
street,
New
York
City.
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Animals
a-coming,
two
by
two:
Up went
the
lid
and you
could
stuff them
in,
Noah
and
all.
Or you could throw
them
at
Brother.
A
toy
is pretty
adaptable.
THE
A
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-'/-;. ;
r^.
i^^
-?f
<^
?
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F?*»
fr'f^HTss^rif
•
«:•>:'
.
v-
.«
f
f>
f
f
beauty
of
a good
toy is that
picks
out the
really
important
things:
who
actually
row,
for
instance,
the steamer's
great
walking beam,
a good
loud bell on the train.
does the rest. Any boy knows that.
toy is
very
like
a
primitive
painting,
crude imitation
of
life;
for
all that a very
shrewd
glimpse
at
it too,
the collection we
exhibit
here
a
kind of
push-pull
of
American
history.
The
it)th-cenlury
toys
on this page
reflect
the fascin
tion transportation has
always held
for
boys.
The
t
locomotive
Comet, with
her
passenger,
freight,
an
mail cars,
dates
to
187^,
and
the
Chicago horsecar
the
lime
of
the
Columbian
Exposition
of
18^}.
Th
racing shell is
a
cast-iron
pull-toy.
The hose
cart
tin and stenciled Mazeppa,
after
Byron's
Cossack
her
The
steamboat
and
the
painting,
Boy
with a
To
Horse,
by
Joseph W.
Stock, are both
from
about
18^^
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Here
was
a
bonanza
for
the
wildly
fortunate
few;
toys were
scarcer then,
and
expected
to
last.
For
action,
we have
a
tin-horse
hoop,
and for good shattering
noise,
a
driun.
Among
the
toys
of
peace
there
is a jack-in-the-box,
ideal for
scaring
sisters,
and
a
panorama
show
to
be
cranked
past
eyes
unused
to
television.
One
might
tire
early
of the Exprefs
company
wagon,
or
the
too-tricky
marble
game,
or
even
the
wind-up
dancers,
but the peddler's
cart,
hung with all
those doodads,
would
last for
years.
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Proud,
maternal
Emma
Clark,
doll in
hand,
was
painted by
an
unknown
artist.
Year?
About
1830.
Girls
have
loved
dolls since
civilization
began;
Queen
Victoria
had
some,
unlikely
as it
seems,
and
so
did
the
Egyptians.
They
turn
up
in
tombs.
Americans
have
made
them
out
of
everything:
rag,
chicken
bones,
wood,
wax, even
corncobs.
Sometimes
they
come
in
instructive
groups; see
the
one-room
schoolhouse.
Do
right
and
fear
nothing
say
the
mottoes,
in
three
languages.
From
left
to
right, at
top,
are a
carved
wooden
boy-doll,
crudely
designed but
fine-
ly
executed
sometime
in
the 19th
century;
a
wood-and-wax
Ophelia with
hair
of flax
and dress
of
damask,
dating
from
about
16^0;
and two
so-called
peddler
dolls,
made in the
i/90's,
that were
brought
over
from
England. The
faces
are
wax,
and the
costumes exquisitely fashioned.
Grown-up
ladies
would
lovingly
work over
these
and
exhibit
them
under glass.
The
school
above
(a
mere
eight inches
high)
and the
rowing
dolls
(right)
are
of
wood.
The
sailors
move as
the wheels
turn;
the
scholars
merely
study.
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4.4
'
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Let's
pretend,
says
the child to
himself,
and all the
rest follows. The
toy
can
be superb,
of course,
like this
French mechanical
clown, who
bends
and
twists
and
balances, a
circus all
by
himself.
More likely,
however,
it is simple, and just
turns,
like
the
little tin
merry-go-round
above.
But
to
the child it is the Thing That
Moves
by
Itself,
full of
all
the
magic
and excitement
with
which
the
young
mind
clothes
the
great
world
outside.
American
Heritage
is
grate
ful
to two
museums
for
th
use
of
their
great
toy
collec
tions: The
Shelburne
Mu-
seum,
Shelburne,
Vermont
for
the
toys
on
pages
8},
86
and
88;
and
the
New-York
Historical
Society
for
the ar
on
page
8i,
the
painting
on
page
82,
and
the
toys
on
pages
84
and
S5.
The
paint
ing
of
Emma
Clark
on
page
8y,
is
from
The
Abby
Al
drich
Rockefeller
Folk
Ar
Collection.
Photographs
b
Herbert
Loebel.
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Sacco-Vanzetti:
the
unfinished
Today,
thirty-two
years
after
Nicola
Sacco
and
liartolomeo
Vanzclli
were executed
for
the
murder
of
a paymaster
and
his guard
in South Braintree,
Massachusetts,
the
ghosts
of
the
cobbler
and
the
fish-peddler are
not at rest.
As
recently
as last
year a
joint
senate-house
committee
of
the
Massa-
chusetts
legislature
was
asked
to
recommend
that
the
gov-
ernor
issue
posthumous
pardons, thus
correcting
an
his-
torical
injustice
which
had besmirched
the
reputation
and
standing
of
Massachusetts
in the eyes
of
the
entire
world.
No
pardons
were
forthcoming.
In
October
of
ip^S
American
Heritage
published
an
article about
the
case entitled
Tragedy
in Dedham, whose
author,
Francis
Russell,
concluded
that
the two men were
innocent
of
the
Braintree
crime.
Recently
we
received
a
letter in
reply
from
Mrs. Dorothy
G.
IVayman,
now
a li-
brarian
at St.
Bonaventure
College
in upper
New
York
State,
but
formerly
a
newspaperwoman
who
covered
the
Sacco-
Vanzetti trial.
It is published
here
in
the
interests
of
his-
torical
fairness, with
a
brief defense
of
his original
thesis
by
Mr. Russell.
—Ed.
recently in American
Heritage that
the Sacco-
.
Vanzetti
case
in
1921
was
a miscarriage of
justice,
I
led
to the conclusion that
the
propagar.^'.a
of the
1920's
becoming
enshrined
in
amber.
Tlie
article
in
question
written
by
one
who candidly
confessed
he
was
a boy in
school in
1921.
I
was
working
press in
those years.
I interviewed
the
knew the counsel
for
both
sides,
was familiar
the scene
and the
people
of the times.
From the
day that Captain
Charles
Van
Amburgh, bal-
expert
for
the
Massachusetts State
Police, showed
in
the
state
police laboratory,
how
the
bullet that
had
Alessandro Berardelli matched
test bullets fired from
e revolver found
on Nicola Sacco at his arrest on
a Brock-
streetcar,
I
have
been as
convinced
as
the
twelve
Nor-
County jurymen
of the guilt of
Sacco
and Vanzetti.
First,
let us rehearse,
factually,
the events in
the payroll
involving
two
murders and
the theft of
$15,776,
became
a cause
celebre, with six
years
of litigation
thirty years of ideology.
Life
was
going
on peacefully
in April of
1920
in
South
Massachusetts. I
know
Braintree,
some twenty
south
of
Boston,
because
I grew
up
in the
next
town,
Across
from
the
South
Braintree
railroad
station
a bit downhill
on
Pearl
Street you
came
first to the
Rice
Hutchins
shoe
factory (where Nicola
Sacco
had worked
an assumed name);
and
next
to it, the
Slater
& Mor-
shoe factory.
(A
few
miles further
south, in
Bridgewater,
Massachusetts,
months
earlier, on
December
24,
1919,
there
had
been
attempted
robbery
of a
payroll for
a Bridgewater shoe
with
gunplay
in the
street. That payroll was in a
truck,
the
guards returned
the
shots,
and
the
rob-
bers
escaped.
You
will not
find in
reference
works
that
Bar-
tolomeo
Vanzetti was
identified
and
convicted
of participa-
tion in that
affair
and
was
a convict
under
sentence
when
tried,
in
1921
with
Sacco,
for
the South
Braintree
murders.
However,
it
is true.)
Thursdays
were paydays
at
Slater &
Morrill.
On
the morn-
ing
of Thursday,
April
15,
1920,
Express
Agent
Shelly Neal
received
as
usual
a
consignment
of cash
for
the
company.
He
worried
a little because
an unfamiliar
large
black
auto-
mobile,
with
engine
running,
was
parked outside
the sta-
tion,
and its
driver
watched
Neal
cross
from
the
express
office
with
the
bundle
of
money
to
the
office
of
Slater
&
Mor-
rill.
The car, however,
drove off
toward
the
village
square.
Two hours later,
with no train
due, William Heron,
a
rail-
road detective, noticed
two strange
men—
Italians,
he thought
—enter the station and
loiter
by
the
restroom.
(After the
ar-
rest, a fortnight later.
Heron identified
Sacco as
one
of
them.)
Shortly
before
Heron saw
the
men in
the
railroad
sta-
tion, Mrs. Lois Andrews,
looking for
a
job at
the
Slater
&
Morrill factory,
saw
a
large,
black
automobile
parked in
front
of the factory
and
a man bent
under
the
hood
as
though
tinkering
with something. She tapped
the man
on
the back
and
asked about
the other
shoe
factory.
He stood
up
and
told
her
which
door
to
go
in
for
the
employment
office at the
Rice
& Hutchins
factory.
Two or three
hours
elapsed
while
the
Slater
& Morrill
pay-
roll was being
put
in
the
individual
pay envelopes.
Frederick
Parmenter was
the
official
paymaster
for the
Slater
& Morrill shoe
factory;
Alessandro Berardelli,
his
armed
guard. During
the
robbery and murder, Berardelli s
Harrington
&
Richardson revolver disappeared.
The
two
set
out that
sunny April
afternoon
about
three
o'clock to
walk, as
tliey
did every Thursday, tlie short dis-
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tance
across the
railroad
tracks,
down
the hill, from the
office to the
Slater
&
Morrill
shoe factory.
Office
employees
watched
them
from the
second-story window
with
a clear
view.
Each
man
was
carrying
a long, flat tin box, like a
covered
tray, filled
with pay
envelopes
stacked in order.
As they
walked, they
met
James
E.
Bostock,
machinist
at
the
Slater &
Morrill
factory, who,
leaving the
factory
to
come
uphill, had
seen
two
foreign-looking
strangers—
he
thought
they
were
Italian
fruit-peddlers—
loafing
near
the
factory.
Parmenter
spoke
to
Bostock
about a pulley that
needed repair.
The
two with
the payroll
went
on
down the
hill. A
moment
later,
Bostock
heard shots
and
turned
around.
As
recorded in the
official
trial transcript, Bostock
testified:
Parmenter
had
started [to run]
across
the street . . .
There was
probably
eight
or ten shots ... [a
man] stood
over Berardelli.
He
shot,
I
should
say,
he shot
at
Berardelli
probably
four or
five
times
. . .
Probably
I was
away from him
50
or 60
feet
. . .
and
as
I turned
they
swung around and
shot
at
me twice
.
. .
The
automobile
came
up
the
street
... I saw
the two that
done
the
shooting
and
one other that
got off
the
runningboard ... he
got out
and
helped throw the two
cans,
or
boxes . .
. that
had
the
payroll,
in
...
I saw it
was a
Buick
car
...
As
it
passed
me,
I
went back
to
where Berardelli
was laying
. .
.
He
laid,
he set, just
off the sidewalk
... He
laid in
a
kind
of
crouched
position and
I helped lay him
down and everytime
he
breathed,
blood
flowed and was
coming
out
his
mouth.
One
of the
four
bullets
fired into
Berardelli's body as
Bos-
tock
watched
in horror
was extracted
at the
autopsy
and
was proved,
ballistically,
to have
been
fired from the
Colt
.32-caliber
revolver
that
police
found concealed
on
Sacco
at his arrest.
There were a number of other
eyewitnesses. Their cumu-
lative testimony may be
read in
the
transcript
of
the trial.
The jury heard
their
living
voices,
watched as
they
made
identifications
of the
accused
on
trial.
Let us pass on to the
sworn testimony of
Sacco
and
Van-
zetti concerning
their
actions from April
15
to
May
5,
1920,
and the circumstances of
their
arrest.
Ever
since
the attempted payroll
robbery
in
Bridgewater
the
previous December,
police
throughout
southern
Massa-
chusetts had been
investigating
suspicious
characters.
One
whom
they
had
under
surveillance
was an
Italian
named
Boda
who lived in
Bridgewater;
he
had
been
seen
driving
a
large,
black
Buick like that
described in
the
Braintree
payroll
robbery. A Braintree
shoeworker named
Pelzer
had
seen the robbery
and had
written
down
the
license num-
ber of
that
car. It was
soon
found,
abandoned
in wood-
land; the
number plate had
been stolen in December.
Boda
owned
an
Overland
car,
which
he
had taken for
repairs to the
garage of
Simon
Johnson,
a
law-abiding
citi-
zen. Police asked Johnson
to
notify
them
if Boda
or any-
one
else
came to
claim the
Overland.
On the
evening of
May
5,
1920,
after
the Johnsons
had
gone
to bed, four
men knocked
at their door.
Mrs. Ruth
Johnson
opened
the door
and saw, by
the
headlight of a
motorcycle,
Boda
and
three
others.
While
her husband
de-
tained
Boda in
conversation,
Mrs.
Johnson
went
to a neigh-
bor's house and
telephoned police. Two of the men, whom
she later identified
as
Sacco
and
Vanzetti, followed
her,
going
and coming
back.
Her husband, meanwhile,
had convinced
Boda
that with-
out
1920
license
plates
the latter
could
not
drive
his
Over-
land out
of the garage
onto
the
highways. Boda
and
another
man,
testified
to
have
been
one
Orciani,
then
mounted the motorcycle,
drove
away and
were never sub-
sequently
apprehended
by
police.
Sacco and
Vanzetti
walked
away
in
the direction of the
electric streetcar
line
to
Brockton
(nearest point
to Stough-
ton,
where Sacco
lived
and
Vanzetti was temporarily
visit-
ing
him).
Police, alerted by Mrs.
Johnson's
telephone
call,
boarded the next streetcar
from
Bridgewater
and
arrested
the
pair.
When
searched
at the Brockton
police station
Sacco
was found
to be
carrying
the Colt .32-caliber
revolver
with
a
number
of cartridges to
fit it. On
Vanzetti was a Har-
rington
& Richardson
revolver, similar to the one
missing
from
the
body
of
the murdered payroll
guard, Berardelli.
All
the eyewitnesses of
the
Braintree
crime
were
given
an
opportunity
to
view Sacco
and Vanzetti
at the police
station,
and a number identified
them.
This is important,
as it
happened
only
two weeks
after
the
crime,
although
their
indictment
by a
Norfolk
County grand jury and their
trial at
Dedham
Courthouse
did
not
come
until a year later.
Part of the
delay
was
due
to the
trial
(and
conviction) of
Vanzetti for the
attempted
payroll robbery
in
Bridgewater
in
December,
1919,
which had priority.
Under
Massachusetts law,
no
reference
was made, at
the
Dedham
trial,
to
Vanzetti's previous trial
and conviction.
No eyewitness
testified
to seeing Vanzetti
fire
a
shot, but
again under Massachusetts
law,
an
accessory
present
and
participating in a
crime where
murder
occurs
is
equally
subject to the
death penalty.
In
retrospect,
the
extraordinary thing, to
me
and
to other
reporters
and citizens of the area, was the
instant organ-
ization—May
7,
1920—
of
an enthusiastic Sacco-
Vanzetti De-
fense
Committee. My newspaper editor
sent
me
often
to
the
Defense headquarters
at
256
Hanover Street,
Boston, to in-
terview
the
various people that
congregated
there—
professed
anarchists, sympathetic
liberals,
and
emotional
Italians. The
Defense
Committee
brought
from
California, as
chief
de-
fense
counsel, a
lawyer
who
had
previously defended
per-
sons accused
of
anarchist
violence.
In four
years.
The New
York Times
reported
on
October
4,
1925,
the
Defense
Com-
mittee
collected
and accounted
publicly
for the
spending
of nearly a
third of a
million
dollars.
They
subsequently
carried the
litigation, with
reiterated
appeals, to the
Massa-
chusetts
Supreme
Court,
to the
governor of
Massachusetts,
and to
several
justices
of
the
Supreme Court
of the
United
States, for
two
more years,
exhausting
every legal
resource
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before the
death
sentence was carried
out
on
August
23,
1927.
In
thirty
years as a
reporter on a
metropolitan
newspa-
per,
never
again
did
I
see such
lavish outlay
of money,
or
such
public
furor as was
elicited for the defense of
two
aliens, arrested
carrying
guns, convicted
of
murder in con-
nection with
a
payroll
robbery.
Setting
aside
the
public
furor,
the
naked
issue
in
the
six-
year
controversy,
quite
simply,
was
the
validity in our civ-
The
New
York Times,
august
lo,
1927
FUlim
CONSIDERS
LAST
MINUTE
STAY
AS
TRIAL
JUDGE
REJECTS
SACCO
PLEA;
NEW
YORK
PROTESTS
END IN
DISORDERS
mmwmnm
Day
'»
Development in
Final
Efforts
To
Save
Lives
of Sacco
and
Vanzetti
AI
Agitation
on
Eve
of
Date
,„^». ...rrl'^rr.'rjT,
—
3«,
-
eaf
SP^kers
Denounce
of
Execution
Brings
;S.l ;,:r
t
:
*n;U
-
~-~. -
.
le
Oeatli Sentence
-'
mv
Attests.
'
^
'
<•-' '< -
These
ip2^
headlines
reflect
the tension and
violence
occa-
sioned by
eleventh-hour
efforts
to
save
Sacco
and
Vanzetti.
ilization
of
trial
by
jury. That issue
was
clearly
recognized
and
upheld
by
the high
court
of Massachusetts
and
by
the
Supreme
Court
of
the
United
States,
both
denying petitions
for
new trials,
after
prolonged
hearings
on
appeals.
Anyone
might think that
a
generation
that has seen
blood purges in Nazi Germany or state
trials
in
Russia
would recognize and defend
the
institution of trial
by a
jury
of
a man's
peers,
with rights
to
counsel
and appeal.
Sacco's defense was an
alibi.
He swore that
on
April
15,
1920,
he had
spent
the day in
Boston,
to get a
passport
to
return
to
Italy.
He could not
produce
a
passport, but
his
story
ran that
he
had taken in a
large
family
photograph
and was
told
he
must have a
regulation
passport photo.
The
defense
produced an affidavit
made in Italy of a
for-
mer clerk in the Boston consulate, whose memory
was
phe-
nomenal.
After a year,
he
not
only
recalled
Sacco's few
minutes
in the
consulate,
and
the
family
group
photo, but
even fixed
the
time
within
fifteen minutes
April
15
was a
Thursday.
Sacco,
under oath at
his trial,
had
testified
that
he
needed
the
passport because we
were
going
Saturday
to New York to
get the
steamboat.
Yet,
instead
of
walking
half
a
mile
from the
consulate
to
Scol-
lay
Square, Boston, which
was
lined
with
studios
specializ-
ing
in
passport
photos delivered immediately,
he
said that
he had loafed around
Boston
all day in restaurants, and
gone
to
work
on Friday,
telling
his boss that the
consulate
was so crowded that
he
could not
get
his passport.
As
for
Vanzetti, whose alibi was
that
he
had
been
selling
eels all day around Plymouth,
Massachusetts,
he
testified
at the trial
that
on April
22
he
went
to
Boston
to
consult
with radical
friends and thence
to
New
York to
see
the
lawyer for an Italian
held for deportation. It is a
fact
that
not one dollar of
the
Slater &
Morrill payroll
was
traced
by
police
to either Sacco or Vanzetti.
It
is
also
a
fact that
more
than
a
third
of a
million
dollars was
forthcoming
for
their defense.
Both
Sacco and
Vanzetti
admitted their anarchist
affilia-
tions
at the trial. (Sacco's last words, as
he went
to the
electric chair, were
Long live
anarchyl )
They
admitted
going
with Boda and Orciani
by prearrangement on
the
evening
of
May
5,
1920,
to
get
Boda's Overland
car from
the
Johnson
garage.
They
said
they
intended
to
visit
radi-
cal friends to collect
and
secrete
subversive literature to
avoid
deportation.
After
the first appeals
for a new
trial had been denied,
late
in
1925,
one
Celestino Madeiros, a fellow prisoner
with
Sacco in the
Dedham jail,
suddenly confessed that he,
with others
he
declined
to
name, had
committed
the South
Braintree robbery and that neither Sacco nor Vanzetti
had
been with them. Aside from palpable
discrepancies,
such
as
that
the payroll
was
in a black
bag
(it
was
in
two flat
tin boxes)
and
that
he
and
his
gang had driven from Provi-
dence to Boston, back to
Providence,
from
Providence
to
Braintree
and
then
spent
some
time in a speak-easy be-
fore the
three o'clock crime, his confession left
unexplained
Sacco's
possession of
the Colt
revolver.
When
all the
appeals
to higher courts had
been consid-
ered
and
denied, six years after the original trial, the
Defense Committee
sought
a
pardon
for
Sacco
and
Vanzetti,
then
under
sentence of death.
Governor Alvan
T. Fuller
of Massachusetts, a conscientious
man,
appointed as an ad-
visory
committee
A. Lawrence
Lowell,
president of Har-
vard
University; Samuel W. Stratton,
president
of the
Massachusetts Institute
of Technology; and Robert
Grant,
retired judge
of the
probate
court
in Boston.
As
a news-
paper reporter
I
knew
them
all
personally.
I considered
them to
have been
honorable men of ability
and probity.
They
interviewed
the eleven jurors
then
surviving, the
judge,
district
attorney, defense
counsel,
and forty-one wit-
nesses
for the
prosecution
and
the
defense.
They
went
to
the prison
with
Governor Fuller to
interview Sacco, Van-
zetti, and the confessing
convict Madeiros.
In
the
end,
they
published
a
report
stating that on the
evidence,
they
believed
that the jury's
verdict was warranted.
During
the six years, the
furor
of public opposition to
the
verdict
had
been
not
only
vocal
but
violent.
The de-
fense enlisted statements in
behalf
of the innocence of
Sacco and Vanzetti
from
prominent people
all over the
w'orld.
Others,
who remained anonymous, took
more
vio-
lent
means
of opposition. Starting
in
1921,
American embas-
sies
were
bombed in
Paris,
Havana,
and
various South Amer-
ican countries.
So,
over the
next few years,
were
the homes
of the
presiding
judge, a
juror, a
key
witness, and even
Robert Elliott, the
official
executioner who
threw
the
switch.
The lovers of justice,
wrote Supreme
Court
Justice
Oliver Wendell
Holmes
to
Harold
Laski, have
emphasized
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their
love by
blowing
up a
building
or
two.
Threats
had
been sent to
Governor
Fuller,
Justice
Holmes,
and
other
officials, so
that
police had
them under
day-and-
night guard in those
days.
Justice
Holmes
was
one
of
four
on
the United
States Supreme
Court who
had had
peti-
tions presented
to
them
and, after
consideration,
had
de-
clined
to
intervene. The
others were
Justices
Louis D.
Brandeis
and Harlan F.
Stone and
Chief
Justice
William
Howard
Taft.
On
the
opinion
of
such
men,
I
am
willing
to
believe
that the
two gunmen
were
afforded every
oppor-
tunity
to
have their
innocence established,
had
they
been
innocent.
In
the
nearly forty
years
since a
Braintree paymaster
and
his
guard
with
the
payroll were shot to death,
the
world
has
seen
many attempts to
destroy
the
democratic
way of
life.
It
is
important for
future generations that
the
record
of
facts
be
not
distorted.
There
exists
a
five-volume transcript
of
the
trial of
Sacco
and Vanzetti, but
few
have
the
time to
read,
analyze,
and
ponder it.
At
least,
let
the
inaccuracies that have
crept
into
the
literature
of
the cause celebre
be
corrected.
Let
Justice
Oliver
Wendell
Holmes,
himself
a Massachusetts
man, a
great
jurist, one
concerned in and
cognizant
of
the
trial,
be quoted.
At
the
time, he
could
not
properly
speak
pub-
licly, but
he
left the record.
He
wrote: I
think the
row
that has
been made
idiotical.
And
again:
Sacco
and Van-
zetti
. . .
were
turned into
a
text
by
the
reds.
—Dorothy
G. Wayman
Mr.
R.US
sell replies:
Mrs.
Wayman may
have seemed to make a
good
case
for
herself, but
when her points are
examined
carefully
none of
them
is tenable.
In
the
matter
of
the
bullet, I
think it is
unquestionable
that
the one
shown
her
by
Captain Van
Amburgh
was
from
Sacco's
pistol. Yet
all
witnesses
testified that only
one
man
shot
Berardelli,
that
this
man
stood over
him and
emptied
his
revolver
into him. Four
bullets were
found in
Berar-
delli's body. When
exhibited in court
three
of
these were
admittedly from a
weapon
not
found
on Sacco
or
Vanzetti.
The
fourth
bullet
was from
a
Colt of the type Sacco
car-
ried.
Therefore
either the
murderer used
two
guns or
else
someone
switched a
bullet.
Medical
Examiner McGrath on
removing the
bullets
marked
each
with
a number.
The Colt
bullet, however,
seems
to
have been
marked with
a different
instrument
than
the
other
three.
Furthermore,
the
man
who shot
Berardelli
was
seen to
reload.
Four
shells were
found near the body.
When
shown in court
only one
was
from
a
Colt.
Yet
the
gunman
was observed to
reload only
once.
Certainly he could
not have
ejected
two
kinds of
cartridges from
one revolver.
By
Lois Andrews I
presume
Mrs.
Wayman is referring
to the
witness Lola
R.
Andrews. Lola
Andrews talked with
a
man
in South
Braintree
the
day of
the
murders
whom
she later identified in
court
as Sacco.
Yet she talked
with
him
in English,
unaware
of
any
accent,
though
Sacco
at the
time
could
scarcely
speak English
at all.
Mrs.
Andrews,
a
hysterical
woman,
later repudiated
her
court
testimony.
James
E.
Bostock
saw the
shooting
more
closely
than
any
other
witness. The
getaway car passed
within
feet of
him.
When
at the trial
he was
asked if
he
could
identify
Sacco
and Vanzetti,
he
replied,
No, sir.
To the question whether
he
could
tell
if
the
defendants
were
the
two
men
he saw
do
the
shooting
he
answered:
No, sir,
I
could
not
tell
whether
or not
they
was,
no
sir.
For the eyewitnesses
who identified
Sacco
and Vanzetti,
an
equal
number denied
they
were the men.
As
Police
Chief
Gallivan
of
Braintree
later
remarked:
The
Government
would
put on a witness
there
and
then
the
defense
would
rush in
to
offset
it . . . That's the way
the
case
appeared
to
me
to
be
drifting along,
to strive
to see who
could
get
the
biggest
crowd. In other words
to see who could tell the
biggest
lies.
As to
the
identification
procedure
before
the
trial, it was most irregular.
Witnesses
were not asked to
pick Sacco
and
Vanzetti
from
a
line-up
but
were
shown
them alone.
Again, Mrs.
Wayman
is wrong about Orciani.
He
was
arrested
the
day
after
Sacco and Vanzetti, but as
lie
was able to
provide
a
time-clock
alibi
he
was
released.
Mrs.
Wayman gives
the
impression
that Vanzetti's ear-
lier trial was
independent
of
the Dedham trial.
Such
is
not
the
case.
Neither
he
nor
Sacco had been suspected of
any
crime
until
they
were
accidentally picked
up by
the
police
a
few weeks after the Braintree
crime.
Vanzetti's
counsel
was afterward able to show
a
receipt
for
eels
that
Vanzetti the
fish-peddler
had signed
in Plymouth the day
he
was supposed to
have
made
the earlier robbery attempt.
Sacco and Vanzetti were
convinced
anarchists, and
it is
quite
true
that
anarchists all
over the
land
rallied to their
defense, just
as it is true that the
Communists
found
the
case
convenient
for their own
political
ends. One of Mrs.
Wayman's
colleagues on the
Boston
Globe, Frank P. Sibley,
attended
every
day of the
Dedham
trial.
Later
he
testified
to the
Lowell
Committee: His
[Judge
Thayer's]
conduct
was very
improper.
What
affected one
more
than anything
else was
his
manner.
It is nothing
that
you
can
read into
the record.
In
my
thirty-five years
I
never saw anything
like it.
Mrs.
Wayman
should
realize
that
a
jury's
verdict is not
sacrosanct. Both
Maine
and Rhode Island abolished cap-
ital
punishment
after it
was
discovered
that
innocent
men
had
been
executed in
those
states. Four years ago
a
Santos
Rodriguez was
convicted by
a
Massachusetts jury of
mur-
der,
a
conviction
aided by
his own
confession.
Yet
last year
he
was finally
proven
innocent, and
released.
Madeiros
in his
confession
admitted that
he was
drunk
during the
holdup.
Some
of the
details he gave may be
wrong
or hazy, yet the
confession
does
account
for
five
men
being
at
the
robbery.
Although
all
witnesses
testified
to
the
92
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five men including a
blond driver,
the
prosecution
made no
consistent attempt
to
account
for
the
other
three. Madeiros
was a member of the
notorious Morelli gang
of
Providence.
As for Governor
Fuller and the Lowell Committee,
Fuller
was a hesitant
parvenu and
President Lowell
of Harvard
had a hard
Yankee
bias
against
foreigners.
In
conclusion
I should
like
to
point
out
that though
anarchists have in
the
past committed acts of political
vio-
lence
as
a
gesture of protest
against
society,
their
motiva-
tions, however
misguided,
have been
idealistic
ones
for
which they
have
been
willing
to
sacrifice
their lives.
Such
a sordid commercial
crime as
the
one
in South
Braintree
would
never
have come
within
the
anarchist canon. Anyone
who
reads
the
letters
of Sacco and Vanzetti
must
realize
how
incompatible
a
robbery-murder
was
with
the two men's
characters.
—Francis
Russell
The
$24
Swindle
CONTINUED
FROM
PACE
64
tate before
starting
any
trouble.
With this in
mind,
Minuit was instructed
to
make
a
legal purchase
of
the
entire
island,
and
he
therefore did what seemed like
the logical thing:
he
asked the
first
Indians
he
saw to
ask their chief
to
come and hold council.
These Indians
were,
of course,
a
band
of Canarsees
who
had
set
up
a
little village called Werpoes
by
a
pond
near
what
is
now
Worth
Street,
and
their
chief
was
a genial
opportunist named
Seyseys. When
Seyseys
learned
that
not
only
would Minuit
give
him
valuable
merchandise
in
exchange
for the title to the
island
of
Manhattan, but
also that Minuit
didn't know that
the
Weckquaesgeeks controlled its
whole
upper
three
quarters
or more, he gladly volunteered
to
take
his
few people away, and let the Dutchmen
hunt and
fish
and
build
things to their hearts'
content.
There
is
some
reason
to
believe that Seyseys wasn't quite sure
what it
meant
to
sell
land—the land
was,
after all,
Mother Earth
to
the Indians,
and
they felt you
could
no
more
sell
it
outright
than
you
could
sell
the
sky-
but
he
wasn't
one
to quibble
over
small
points; he
took
the sixty guilders' worth
*
of
knives,
axes, clothing,
and
beads
(and
possibly
rum),
and
went
chortling
back
to
Brooklyn.
The
Canarsees
set
up another vil-
lage
named Werpoes, to
replace
the one
they had left
behind,
and
everybody settled down and
was happy.
Everybody
was happy, that
is,
except the
Weck-
quaesgeeks. At first they had
no idea that their land
had
been sold out from under
them,
but then more
and
more
Dutch
farmers
began to arrive, and
their
unfenced cattle
wandered off
across the Indians'
land,
eating
their
corn
and
trampling
their
crops,
and
when
the Indians
complained, they
were
given
a few trinkets
in
payment
and told
it was too
bad, but
the
land
was
no
longer theirs. It
was
then that
the
truth began to
creep
over
them, and
then there was absolutely
noth-
ing
they
could
do. Even
if they had
wanted
to make
•
The
sixty
guilders
has
popularly
been
supposed to have
been
worth
about
$24,
but
some authorities
claim
that, considering
the
times
and
the flexible
rates of
exchange,
it was probably
nearer
S2.000.
At
any rate,
it was
all found money
as
far
as
Seyseys was
concerned.
a
fight
about it,
the
Dutch
had
guns
and
they didn't,
and
the only thing
the Indians
could
do
was sullenly
try
to make the best
of
an impossible situation.
Matters
might
have continued
at
a
slow
boil for
some
time, if
it
hadn't
been that
a few
of the
Dutch
violated
all
the standing orders
and began
to trade
liquor and
guns
to the
Indians
in
exchange
for
furs.
They
found
that
the Indians,
being
unaccustomed
to
liquor,
were
pushovers for
a quick bargain after
about
one drink; the thing
the Dutch didn't
realize
was
the
fact
that an
Indian
with
a
hangover,
a
gun, and a
burning
sense
of injustice
was
as dangerous
as a pla-
toon
of
dragoons.
The
mere
sight
of
a red-eyed, dry-
mouthed Indian,
with
a
gun
in
his
shaking
hand and
bits
of
dirt
and grass clinging
to his coating
of
days-old
eagle
fat, should have
been
enough
to warn them to
be
careful—
but
it wasn't.
Inevitably,
trouble developed;
massacres
were per-
petrated
by both sides,
but
as
often
as not
it was
the
Dutch
who
were
the
aggressors. (In
one
spectacular
display
of
perfidy
they slaughtered
a whole group
of
Weckquaesgeeks
who had come
to them for
protection
against
the
marauding
Mohawks,
and mangled
them
so
badly
that
at
first it
looked
like the work
of
other
Indians.
As
a
result,
by
1664,
when
the
British
fleet
slipped in and
quietly
took
New
Amsterdam,
there
were
very few
Indians left
on
the island,
and
those
who
remained
didn't really
care
about
anything.
They
had succumbed
not only
to
various kinds
of
diseases
and
to the white men
but,
more
dis-
astrously,
they
had
been
done in by
the
Mohawks
from
up
one
river,
and
by
the
Canarsees from across another.
It should
be
a
lesson
to us
all.
Nathaniel
Benchley
has
the
natural inter-
est
of
any
Manhattan
resident in this
im-
portant though
little-known aspect
of
its
past.
He
is
a novelist,
a
playwright, and
the
author
of
a
book
about his
father,
Robert
Benchley,
a
Biography.
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The
American
Woodsman''
CONTINUED
FROM
PACE I5
on with his
gigantic
task.
No river
valley
on earth
pro-
vides
a
broader and
more
tempting
flyway than
the
Mississippi's. From
the
Arctic
barrens
to
the grassy
plains
of
Patagonia,
feathered
travelers
are
funneled
through this immense
corridor
on
their
seasonal flights,
in
numbers and
varieties
beyond calculation.
En
route
Audubon saw
sights none
of us
is
privileged
to see
any
more:
great white
whooping
cranes
majestically
winging their way down the
valley from Canada
to
the Gulf
Coast;
ivory-billed
woodpeckers,
the
largest
and mightiest
axemen of
their
tribe,
filling
the
woods
with
their clarinet-like calls; flocks of chattering
para-
keets and
swallow-tailed
kites.
For the
next six years Audubon made
his head-
quarters in
the
lush
green
world of
lower
Louisiana,
where
so many
of
the
birds that summered
in
the
North found
their
winter
retreat.
By
any
but
his
own
standards
it was,
for the
most
part,
a
vagrant's life.
To
keep
himself alive
he
drew portraits;
taught drawing,
French,
music,
dancing,
or
fencing; painted shop
signs
and
steamship
decorations,
as
need and opportunity
dictated.
Once
in
New Orleans
he had
the
titillating
experience of
being
commissioned
by a
mysterious and
toothsome
young
widow to paint
her
naked
loveliness.
(He
wrote to
Lucy
of
this ten-day
adventure of
private
sessions with
an
excitement
she
must
have
found diffi-
cult to
share.)
Occasionally
he
did
well
enough
to
help
support his
family while he
stubbornly
proceeded
with
his essen-
tial
work. But it was
Lucy
who
remained
throughout
the
next
eight years the
consistent
family
breadwinner.
She followed
her husband south
after
a
separation of
fourteen
months,
and he
soon found
remunerative em-
ployment
for her as
a
tutor
and companion and, when
that
petered
out,
as
a
governess. This
left
him
more
free
to leave
home and
roam
as need be, to
hunt
and
draw
until
his
portfolio bulged
with
fresh material.
Each
drawing
was
to be
the size of life.
He vowed
never to
draw
from a
stuffed
animal,
and every
day
or
evening
he
carefully
wired
his latest
specimen
into
a
lifelike
position
against
squared paper and
drew off
the
likeness
on
similarly
squared
paper
as
rapidly
as
possible
to
catch the
full
color
of
the
plumage
before
its
brilliance
faded.
The
method
gave
a
measure of
control
to
his
draftsmanship,
but it
could
have re-
sulted
in
the
most mechanical
and artificial
construc-
tions.
That it rarely did
so was
because Audubon's
mind's
eye
brimmed with keen
observations
of the
creatures in
all
their
winged freedom, as the
small-scale
sketches
of
living birds
on
the
margins
of his journals
make
clear enough.
In
fact,
no
bird
artist
until then.
and
possibly
none since, has so
perceptively and spir-
itedly
caught the
natural
likenesses of his
models.
On March
25,
1821,
Audubon
started work
on
a
great
white heron.
Two days
later
he was still
fran-
tically trying
to
make the
bird
come
alive
on
his
paper,
but the
stench
of
the
putrefying carcass had
by
that
time
become
overpowering.
However,
he
braved
nausea
to open
the
bird for clues to
its
sex
and eating
habits.
He
examined
the
crops
and gizzards of
the
birds
he drew to
learn
how they fed and
to help him
decide
under what
circumstances
to
represent
them.
Often enough he ate
a
bird
he had shot during
the
day,
sometimes as a
normal
way
of
satisfying
a healthy
appetite, sometimes out
of
serious curiosity.
Starlings
and hermit
thrushes
he
found delicate
eating,
al-
though the
latter
were fatty;
herring
gulls were too
salty
for his taste;
the flesh
of
flickers
had a
disagree-
ably
strong
flavor of
the
ants
they
fed
upon; telltale
godwits
were
very
fatty
but
very
fishy ; and
so
on.
He
was
probably
one
of
the most
omnivorous
of
naturalists.
Later
in
life,
when he
was
working
on
a
book
about
mammals,
he
found
wildcat meat not un-
like veal
in
flavor
and alligator flesh
far
from
bad.
Dog meat
was
excellent, and
although
he gagged
at
the
frontier
delicacy
of
raw
buffalo
brains,
still warm
after
the
kill, he
admitted they
might
be
delicious.
How
keenly
Lucy
may have felt
the
abrupt,
pro-
longed, and
trying separations
of
the
next
ten
years
can
only
be
guessed.
At
least
occasionally
she
seems
to
have
questioned
her
husband's
judgment and
values,
called
him to
his
better
senses,
and
asked
him
to
consider
his
family
before his feathered friends.
I
have
a
rival in
every
bird, she observed
to
her sister;
but
there could
have been as
much pride as
bitterness
in
such
a
remark.
If
she did
not wholeheartedly
be-
lieve
in
his
destiny, the
loneliness and renunciation
of
those
years
must have
been
great
indeed.
It
was with
seventeen
hundred
dollars of Lucy's
earnings, in any
case,
that
Audubon
set sail alone
for
England
to
launch
his
publication
in
the spring of
1826.
He
carried
with
him
240
drawings,
many
of
them
redrawings
of
earlier
efforts,
and
letters
of
introduc-
tion
to
Sir
Walter
Scott, Lafayette,
Baron
von Hum-
boldt,
and
other
dignitaries. He
had learned
to a
cer-
tainty
that no
one
in
America
would publish
his
work,
but he
was
still
full
of
his
purpose.
The
conviction
that it was
worth
all the
years
of
dedication was often
a
desperately
lonely one.
His field work had been
al-
most
without
reference
to
informed
scientific
or
ar-
tistic
opinion.
With
little
formal
training
and
less
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professional
guidance,
he had
doggedly and
unspar-
ingly set his own
criteria.
Audubon
made
an immediate
impression
on
the
Old
World.
The
lithe
and
handsome
woodsman,
with
curly
chestnut
hair falling in
thick
clusters to his
shoulders,
and with his
inexhaustible,
lyrical stories
of
life in
the
wilderness—
told with
an
engaging
French
accent—
walked out
of the
forests of
America
into the
social
and
scholarly circles
abroad
with
the freshness
and wonder
of
the
New
World still
upon
him.
At par-
lor
gatherings he was
called
upon to imitate the calls
of
owls and other wild birds,
to
yell like an
Indian,
and
to sing the
songs
of the
western rivermen. He had
some
difficulty
assuring
a
curious audience
that
his
worst enemies
in
the wilderness had
not
been
tigers,
bears, and wolves, but
ticks
and
mosquitoes—
which, he
added
with
feeling,
were
quite
enough.
He
was, in fact, all his admiring public wanted
him
to be, and
something
more.
He
had
roamed
the
length
and
breadth of the
American
borderland
with all the
freedom
of the
wild
creatures
he
knew
so
well
and
re-
corded so
faithfully. He
had
talked with
Daniel
Boone.
He
had
hunted and
camped
with Indians
along
the
frontier;
he
knew
their ways
and
may
have spoken
their language.
He had
traveled
by
ark
and keelboat
with
the
rough rivermen
of
the
western waterways,
and he could speak
their
language eloquently. (In spite
of
repeated resolutions,
in
later years his profanity
was
the
envy
of
sailors he shipped with.)
He was a Mason,
had
a hand for chess
and
billiards,
and for good
meas-
ure
he
could
also knowingly discuss the books, drama,
and
music
of
the
London
season.
He
played
his
part
without
difficulty.
In
his
letters
In
1S42,
at
the
age
of
57,
Audubon settled
down
at
Min-
nie's Land —
Minnie
was
the Audubon boys'
name
for
their mother—
in New York City. The
estate,
on
the
Hudson
River
between ijjth and i$6th
streets,
is
now
Audubon
Park,
home
he
started
referring
to
himself
as
the
American
woodsman,
at
first
a
bit
self-consciously, then habitu-
ally,
ready
enough to
see himself
as
others
chose
to
see
him.
He
was not unduly
hampered
by
modesty. My
hairs are now as
beautifully
long and
curly
as ever,
he
wrote
Lucy
from
Scotland, and
I
assure thee do as
much
for me as my Talent for Painting.
Yet,
he was
guided
less
by
vanity
than
by
his tower-
ing
determination
to
call attention
to his project,
and
for
this his theatrical
appearance was good
public
relations.
In
responsible
intellectual
circles the
quality
and interest of
his
work were immediately recognized.
He was
quickly
elected
to
a
half-dozen learned
socie-
ties,
whose
meetings
he
was asked to
address
and
to
whose
journals
he was asked
to
contribute.
One
critic
pointed
out,
when the
drawings
were
publicly
exhib-
ited, that
these were more than ornithological
studies
executed
on a
brave new scale;
they gave
old
Europe
a
fresh
poetic
vision
of
America
that,
like
the
man him-
self, fired
the
imagination.
Who
would
have
expected
such things
from the woods of America?
exclaimed
the fashionable
Parisian artist
Fran(jois
Gerard.
For
all the adulation
and
recognition,
no
one
rushed
forward
to sponsor publication. Indeed, some
of
Audu-
bon's best-qualified
counselors
advised against
any
such hopeless
undertaking.
Yet everything that
had
been
accomplished
up
to
now
was
only
a
beginning.
All
his
records—
his drawings,
his
notes, and
his
stored-
up
observations—
were
of
small
value to
the
world
un-
til they were
cast
in
adequately published form.
So,
with
sublime
temerity, Audubon commissioned a Lon-
don
engraver
to start
work
and,
without
a publisher,
an agent,
or
a
single
subscriber, issued
a
prospectus
committing
him
to at
least
twelve
years
of
hard work
and roughly
one
hundred thousand
dollars
in costs.
Those
next
twelve years
were
years
of
the most
extraordinary
accomplishment. At the
start
he
needed
money desperately
to
get
his enterprise off the ground
—in
order
to
subsist,
for
that
matter. I
do
anything
for
money now
a
days,
he
wrote Lucy five
months
after
the prospectus was issued. He
drew
trifles
for
the al-
bum
of
a
Scotch lady, and
he
turned out careful copies
of
his
drawings,
which
he
peddled among the
picture
dealers
along
the
Strand
or
to
such
individual
cus-
tomers as
he
could
attract. (Where
have
all those pic-
tures
gone,
he
later
wondered, as indeed
do
we today.)
At
one
point,
when
he
had
borrowed
five pounds to
keep
himself in
supplies
and
the
engraver
called
for
sixty
more
to
meet his
payroll. Sir
Thomas Lawrence
brought
some
friends to
Audubon's
studio, and their
purchases may
well
have
preserved
him
at the last mo-
ment
from
the
awful
reality of
the debtors'
prison.
In
the
meantime,
armed
with
letters
of
introduc-
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Drawing
Room
Companion, may 6
tion,
he
scoured
the
countryside
for
subscribers.
Nine
months
after
is-
suing the
prospectus
he
had
more
than
a
hundred names
on
his
list,
and
when
these
started
paying
upon delivery
of
the
finished
repro-
ductions,
his
financial
problems
eased
somewhat.
Soon,
at
least,
he
could
write Lucy
that she
need no
longer send
him
money.
But
only
by
constant
attention could he keep
his less
dedicated patrons from
can-
celing
their
expensive
subscrip-
tions.
At one
point
Audubon esti-
mated
that
during
the
four
years
it
had
taken
him
to
produce
his
first
volume,
fifty subscribers,
represent-
ing
lost
payments of
some
fifty-six
thousand
dollars,
had
reneged.
On the
other
hand,
if
he
neglected
close
supervision
of
the
engravings
of
the
plates and
the
hand
coloring
of
the
reproductions,
the
work might go
awry.
In
April,
1828, he
complained
of
the
daubing
of
one
of
the
colorists,
and
the
whole
crew
quit
on
the spot and
had
to
be
replaced.
Time
and
again on
his
travels
he
came
across
defective copies
and
returned
them
for re-
doing.
In
June,
1830,
he
wrote his
engraver,
Should
I
find the same complaints as I
proceed from
one
large
town to another through out
England
as
I am
now
de-
termined
to do—I must
candidly
tell you that
I will
abandon
the
Publication
and
return
to
my
own
Woods
until I leave this World
for
a
better
one.
However,
Robert
Havell,
the
engraver
entrusted
with
most
of
the work, was
on the
whole
a
superb and
conscientious
craftsman
and an
artist in
his own
right. In
the
end,
it
is
his scrupulously finished
aquatints that
are
generally
celebrated
as
Audubon originals,
although most of
the
drawings
from
which
they
were
derived
may
still
be seen
at
the
New-York Historical
Society.
As
the
work progressed,
Audubon's
standards rose,
and
he
became
increasingly
aware
of his limitations
as
an
ornithologist.
He realized too
that
he had barely
half
enough
drawings
to cover
his subject,
and
of these
many
were
simply
not good enough. Three
times
be-
fore
the
job was
completed he
returned
to
America
to
replenish
his
portfolio,
in
spite of
the
cost
in lost
sub-
scriptions
while
he was
away. In
passing
he would
j^gather subscriptions
in
his
own
country
(his
fame
had
crossed
the
Atlantic),
and
then
resell the English
delin-
quents
when
he
returned.
If
I
could
be
spared from
Drawing
Birds
and
from
going
to
England
for
12
months
after
my next Voyage, he wrote
from
America
in
1833,
I
could procure
in that
time and
in
our
own
Country too,
one hundred
additional Subscribers.
Five months
later he
left
America
with
sixty-two sub-
scribers and a hundred new drawings.
These
American
excursions
took
him from
the chill
coast
of Labrador
to
the keys
of Florida
and on to
the
remote republic of
Texas.
(While in that independent
new
nation he
drank grog
and
swapped yarns
with
Sam
Houston
in his log house.
A few
months later
he
dined
en
jamiUe with
Andy
Jackson
at
what, he
re-
ported, was
then
becoming familiarly
and
vulgarly
known as the White House,
where
he learned
that
the
President did not
approve
of the
annexation
of
Texas.) In
the
end,
the
roster
of
birds
he
depicted
had
grown
well beyond
the
number
set
forth
in
the
pros-
pectus,
and,
in
a
depression year, he was faced with
balky
subscribers who
objected to
still
more
expensive
commitments,
or with
the
unthinkable alternative
of
leaving
his
work incomplete. He
finally squeezed
the
additional
subjects into thirty-five new
plates.
The whole operation had
long
since
begun
to
de-
mand
far
more
energy, skill,
and
knowledge
than Au-
dubon
alone
could
bring
to it in his lifetime.
Lucy
and both their sons,
now
capable
artists in
their
own
right, were put to work.
Audubon was
ever
hopeful
that
the
lads might
see
the
publication
through on
their own if
he
couldn't finish
it himself. There
will
be
no
End
to
my
Publications
of
Birds,
he
wrote
Havell,
or
(which
is
the
same)
of my Sons Publica-
tions.
My
Youngest Son draws
Well—
Cdin
you tell what
is
his
or
mine's work
in
the
last
Drawings
you
saw?
Actually,
Audubon
himself
never
did tell. Here, as
elsewhere,
he was by
no
means careful about
giving
credit where it
was
due. At
least
one of
the
birds in
the
final work
is
altogether
John's,
but
there
is
no
acknowl-
edgment given
in
the text. Another
is
Lucy's, although
hers is clearly
indicated as such.
In the
press for time,
he
brought
his
family and friends
into the
closest col-
laboration—into
what he called
his Little
Alliance.
Can
we
not
push
the
work
still
faster?
he
again
wrote
Havell from
America.
So much travelling
ex-
posure
and
fatigue
do
I
undergo,
that
the
Machine
me
thinks is
wearing out;
and it
would
indeed
be
a
pleas-
ure
for
me
to see
the
last of
the
present Publication.
He was
relying
ever more heavily on that
competent
man
to
finish
his
incomplete
drawings
on the copper-
as well as
for many
other services,
such as
selling
skins,
shells,
and insects
to
the
British
Museum
for
cash
to
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help meet the
formidable weekly
payroll
of
one hun-
dred
pounds.
A scribbled
note
to
Havell
on
one
of
the
drawings,
of
a
crippled great black-backed
gull, reads,
finish
this
ground better.
Amend
this
rascally
sky
and
water,
he
wrote on
another original; on still
another he
asked the
engraver
to
supply an old rotten
stick. The
entire
setting
of
the
great
auk and
of
sev-
eral
other
subjects are
Havell's agreeable inventions.
Audubon
always
had
trouble
with landscapes—
he
was
not
a
versatile artist—and,
when he
used
them in
his
compositions,
usually
depended upon
the
efforts
of
one
or
another of
the youthful
artists who traveled
with
him, or Iclt
them for
Havell
to
supply.
To
expedite
matters further,
Audubon
not
only
oc-
casionally
copied elements from
his own earlier repre-
sentations to
supplement
later
ones, but a
few
times he
cribbed from
the rival ornithological
publication of
Alexander
Wilson.
A
number
of his final efforts
were
composed in part
of
pasted cutoius of
figures—
even
in-
dividual
blades
of
grass—
from
other discarded compo-
sitions. Take
great
care
of
these Drawings,
he
wrote
Victor
of
one lot
he
sent
to
England
from
America,
and shew them
to
a
very
jew of
your Friends
... as
many Birds have been Pasted.
Nothing
really
mattered save
that the work
be
properly presented
in the
final printing,
and
that
it
all
be
finished
before time ran out. Audubon
reached
in all directions
for the
help
he had
to
have.
You must stick
a
Cricket
or a Grass hoper
on
a thorn
before
the
bill of
the Male
Shrike
on the wing,
he
in-
structed Victor.
—It
is their Habit—
but could
not pro-
cure
one yesterday
and
today
it
rains hard.
Have the
edges of the little Grous (Young)
softened
in the En-
graving ;
and, he added,
have
the plants properly
identified by a
member of the
Linnaean Society. Draw-
ings of
many
of the
plants,
flowers,
and
some
of the in-
sects
that
were
reproduced
on
the
finished
plates
were
supplied
by
the
youngster
Joe
Mason,
who accom-
panied Audubon
clown
the
Ohio in
1820,
and in later
years,
at
his
urgent request,
by
Maria Martin, sister-in-
law
and then wife of his naturalist
friend,
John
Bach-
man.
To
Bachman
he
turned
with
ever-mounting
in-
sistence for more
information
to
include
in
the bird
biographies
that
would
accompany the
plates. I am
almost mad
with
the
desire of
publishing
my 3d
Vol
this
year,
he
wrote him
in
1835.
I am
growing
old
fast
and
must
work
at a double quick time now
. . .
Can
you send
me some good stories
for
Episodes? Send
quickly
and often
. . .
'any
sort of
things'
for
Epi-
sodes
connected
with
Natural
History.
All too aware
of
his deficiencies as
a
writer
and a sci-
entific naturalist,
he
hired
William MacGillivray,
a
Scotch
naturalist,
to
turn his manuscripts into good
English and
sound descriptive
commentary
on
the
birds. With
Lucy's
added help, Audubon
wrote
his
son
Victor
in a fever
of
excitement, the
manuscripts
went
on
increasing
in bulk like
the
rising
of a
stream
after
abundant rains.
It was a
prolific
flow
of words
written
out by
Audubon
in his
gushing
prose; five
solid
vol-
umes,
averaging six hundred printed
pages
each,
were
completed—
edited, set up in
type,
proofed, seen
through
the press,
bound,
and
distributed—
in
eight years'
time,
all in
the
midst
of a full round
of
other
essential ac-
tivities.
Every moment he could spare
from
writing,
draw-
ing, and
sundry
other
concerns, Audubon
spent
beat-
ing
the
bushes for new
subscribers and
checking
up
on
the old
ones, often
on
foot over
long
distances.
When
he was
in his early
forties
he
thought he
could
still
outwalk
and kill down
any horse
in England in
twenty
days' time, and
it is
likely he
could.
To
a
man
in
a
hurry, he
later
observed,
the
slowness
of
the
stage-
coach could be a
great bore. Good
God, if
this is not
Labour,
I
Know
not
what
Labour is, he
wrote
Lucy
one
evening after
having trudged
something
over ten
miles with
his
heavy
portfolio
in a fruitless quest
for customers;
and
he
soaked
his
feet
in hot water. The
next
week
he
learned that the
Marchioness of
Hereford, who
had
discontinued
her subscription,
had had the
whole
first
volume of
plates cut
out
and
pasted
on the
walls of one
of
her
superb rooms.
If
you
woiUd
think
my
advice to you
worth
a
jot,
he wrote
Bachman,
never
set
to
the writing
of
any one
Book. . .
.
Yet
Audubon
capped
his
per-
formance
by
adding
a
technical
syn-
opsis
of
370
more pages
(largely en-
gineered
by
MacGillivray)
to
the
giant
folios
of
reproductions
and
the
five
volumes of
biographies.
And then,
in
1839,
he
sailed
for
home for the last time.
He
had suc-
cessfully
concluded one of
the most
improbable
publishing
ventures in
history.
It
had
been
his
unique
con-
cept, his
risk,
and his total
accom-
plishment.
He ended up
with some-
thing over
160
standing
subscribers
(n8
had fallen
by the
wayside
over
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the years), grossing
about
two
hundred thousand
dol-
lars
in
the total
operation.
In
the process, he pointed
out, he had
growed neither
fat,
rich, nor
lazy.
But
he
had
become
a
legend in
his own
time.
I
have
labored
like
a
cart
Horse for
the
last
thirty
years
on
a
Single
Work,
he wrote Bachman,
.
. .
and now
am
thought
a-a-a
(I
dislike
to
write it,
but here goes)
a
Great
Nat-
uralist
As
the
learned
Baron
Cuvier
had exclaimed
when
he
saw
the
first
finished
plates,
this
was
indeed
the
most magnificent
monument
yet
raised
to
orni-
thology.
No
one
who
knew
the
man
would
have taken seri-
ously
his
admonition
about
the
writing
of
a book.
Those
who
knew
him
best,
in fact, had years earlier
learned
that he already
planned
to reissue
The
Birds
of
America,
revised
and
in a
smaller
format,
once
the
big
edition
was
completed,
as
well
as to compile
an
en-
tirely
new
book
on North
American
mammals.
By
the
time
he
arrived
in
America,
these projects
had already
been put in train.
The
petite
edition
of
the
Birds
book
quickly
de-
veloped into
a
substantial operation,
most of
the
man-
agement
being left
to
John
and
Victor.
By
means
of
a
camera lucida
John
reduced
the
plates
of
the original,
supplemented and
somewhat
revised, for
lithographic
reproduction;
and
the
basic text
was
systematically
re-
arranged.
This
octavo
version
was
issued
in one hun-
dred
separate parts, to
be
sold
for one
dollar
a
part.
Audubon
himself
spent a
considerable
amount of
.his
time
canvassing
the countryside,
from Canada
to
Washington,
often
in one-night
stands, signing up
subscribers.
During
one
month
he
covered
more
than
fifteen
hundred
miles
(he
was steam-propelled
these
latter
days,
and
found
the
sparks from
the
locomotives
a
real hazard),
and
at
the
outset
he
sold subscrip-
tions
faster than
he
could
supply the
parts.
On April
29,
1841,
he wrote
one of
his
agents from
New York,
.
. .
we
have
at this
moment in this
city
and
at
Phila-
delphia
upwards
of Seventy persons
employed
... all
these are
to
be
paid
regularly each
Saturday
evening,
and
when
we
are out
of
temper it
is
not without
cause.
Among
the agents
he
employed
to help
him
drum
up
trade were
Dr. George
Parkman,
a
friendly
and
in-
fluential
volunteer
who
was
murdered
a
few
years later
in
one
of
Harvard's
most
gruesome
and spectacular
scandals;
and—on
a
professional
level—
Messrs.
Little
and
Brown,
a
new
team of Boston booksellers,
who
ap-
parently
served him well.
In
any event,
by
the
time
he
felt
obliged to
write
the above letter he already
had at
least
1,475
orders for
the plates;
and
2,000
for
the texts,
which
could
be
purchased separately.
If in
the
end
he
actually
was
paid
one hundred
dollars
each
for
these
The varying
moods
of
the
Mississippi—
here seen
at
the
great
Bend No.
100 in Louisiana—became
familiar to Audubon
as
he floated down
to New Orleans in
1820,
sketching
birds
and
paying
his expenses
by
painting
portraits
on the
way.
subscriptions,
it is easy to understand
why
he gratefully
referred
to
the
little
edition
as
the
family's
Salvator.
On his tireless rounds
Audubon
also
took
subscrip-
tions—with
remarkable
results—
for
the work
on
ani-
mals,
just under way, at three hundred
dollars
a
complete
set. He also tried to
unload
his
very
few
re-
maining sets
of
the
big
Birds, and dunned laggard
sub-
scribers to
that work. Of these, the
most
famous
and
notorious was
without
question Daniel Webster,
whose
subscription
Audubon
had exultantly
reported
in
his
journal
of
1836.
In
October,
1840,
the naturalist
called
upon ^Vebster
at
his
Boston
office
and
reported
that
the
statesman
was
greatly surprised that
I
have
not received
a
Dollar
yet
on
a/c
of
what
he owes
us
. . .
and said that
he
would
attend
to that business at
once,
and
indeed settle it to
my
satisfaction
by
'W'ednes-
day next.
Nous verrons
Three
months
later Audubon
got a
payment
on ac-
count for
one
hundred dollars
only (plus,
however,
a
subscription
for
the little
work with
payment
guaran-
teed
by
Little
and
Brown ). But
he tracked
his
quarry
as
remorselessly
as ever he
chased
a
bird
of
the
forest.
Webster must
have
come
to
dread
the sight of him.
In
the
heat of
the
Washington summer
two years
later,
Audubon
hunted the
godlike
Dan'l
in his
office
but
found
him
engaged
with Lord Ashburton:
one
of
those
private
conferences,
no
doubt,
by
means of
which
the
two finally settled
the
long
disputed
northeastern
boundary
of
the
United
States.
(A
few days
later
Audu-
bon
distracted
Ashburton
from his
diplomatic mission
long enough
to
sell liim a copy of Birds
of
America for
one
thousand
dollars in
gold.)
Webster was still
not
in
when
Audubon returned to
his
office
the
next
week,
but
the bird
man finally ran
him
down
in
the
Senate lobby.
He told
me
that
he
particularly wished
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to
see
me
on
ray
return from Richmond Audubon
entered in
his
journal. What
for
I know
not. A week
later
he
knew. Mr.
W.
would
give me
a
fat place was
I willing to have one; but I
love indepenn
and piece
more
than humbug
and
money
In other words,
ap-
parently,
he would
not
be
bought
off.
Between
his
wide-ranging
business
trips Audubon
applied himself to the
projected book on mammals,
a
task
he
had
neither
the
time,
the energy,
nor
the
knowledge to
complete. Don't flatter
yourself that
this
book
is
child's
play—,
John
Bachman warned him
at
the outset;
the
birds are
a mere trifle compared
with
this.
I have been at it all
my
life
...
we all have
much
to learn in
the
matter. However, Audubon's
de-
termination
was
fixed
on
this
new
goal; as
he
wrote
Bachman, My
spirits are
as
enthusiastical as ever.
When he
was within
reach
of his
drawing papers
he
worked
on
them from daylight
to
bedtime.
He dis-
patched
his son
John
first to
the
wilds
of the South-
west, then to
the
zoos and
museums of Europe to
record
specimens
he
himself
had
no hope
of collecting
or examining.
The
indispensable Bachman
was
com-
mandeered
to
provide
an
authoritative
text,
which he
completed imder great
difficulties
and discouragements.
Over the years that
followed
he got diminishing
help
from Audubon, whose own time was now
really
run-
ning out.
Yet
in
1843,
with a final burst
of
his
incredi-
ble energy, the toothless,
grizzled veteran
took
off
on
an expedition
to
gather
more material.
He
went as
far
as
Fort
Union
at
the
mouth
of
the
Yellowstone
River,
farther
west
than
he had
ever
been
but
not so far
as he
had
always
yearned
to
go.
It
was Audubon's
last sortie
into
the
wilderness.
There
were still
birds
in abun-
dance
to
collect, new
varieties that
he
had
missed
ear-
lier,
as well
as
the animals
he went
to
hunt and
record.
He
made
an
adequate
killing
for his purposes.
But the time was also
running out for some
of the
wild life
Audubon
was
determined
to put
down in his
second great
book
of discovery.
The
great
auk
had
al-
ready disappeared
before
he had
seen
a
living
speci-
men. Now,
as
Audubon
witnessed the endless
slaughter
that went on about him
near
this
hunter's
paradise,
he
was dismayed
at the prospect.
Surely,
he
concluded
as
the
mounds
of beaver,
buffalo,
and wolves piled up
on
the
Plains,
this
should
not
be
permitted.
It was too
late
for
his concern
to
matter.
His own
shooting days were,
in
any
case, just about over.
I am
getting
an old
man,
he
lamented
to his journal
on
September
28,
1843,
^°^
'his
evening I missed
my
foot-
ing on getting
into
the
boat,
and bruised
my knee
and
my elbow,
but
at seventy
and over
I
cannot
have the
spring
of
seventeen.
From
contemporary descriptions
he
already
looked
to
be a patriarchal
seventy,
but
he
was
in
fact
only
fifty-eight
and
he
knew
it.
Within two
years
of
his return from the
Yellowstone
the
old man completed about one
half the
drawings
that
were to
be
reproduced in the
mammals
book;
then
he laid
down
his
brushes.
He had done
what he
could in
life and this was an
end
to it.
As
if
by some
deeply
felt
persuasion,
he
released
himself
from
further
care by
slipping
into a
benign, helpless senescence.
For
the
few
remaining
years
of
his
life
he
was
barely
aware that the vital industry
he had
set
in motion
never faltered.
John
returned
from
England
and
fin-
ished the remaining drawings;
Bachman
worked
as
hard
as
Audubon
ever
had
to
compile
the
texts,
which
a
half-dozen
others helped to prepare for
the
printer;
and, among other tasks,
Victor
saw
the
abundant flow
of
material
through to final publication.
When Audubon died
in
1851,
full
of
honors,
the
first
edition
of
the animals book
was not yet
finished,
and
a
whole
series
of
reprintings
of
both
titles
was
on
the
calendar
for
the future.
But this
cr^ole de
Saint-
Domingue,
as
he
was
referred
to in
his
father's will,
this
inept
Kentucky merchant—a
one-time bankrupt,
this man
who
cared
for
nothing
more than to
explain
the ways
of
the birds and beasts, had built
his
idio-
syncrasy
into
an
organized institution
of
international
stature;
and
into
a
business
with
its own momentum,
which, astonishingly, grossed
very large
sums
of money.
At
a
guess, the
figure could have been in
the
neighbor-
hood
of
half
a
million dollars
even
before Audubon
died. After
his
death,
while Victor and
John
still lived,
the
books
proliferated
in
numerous reprintings.
From
all this no family fortune was
founded,
for
various
reasons, including—
among
other
things—
the
continuing
high cost of production.
At
the
age
of
seventy-five,
indeed, Lucy, burdened
with
the
cares
oc-
casioned
by
the
death
of
their
two
sons,
and
the
heavy
losses
they
had previously sustained,
was obliged
to
sell the
original
drawings
to alleviate her absolute
need. (The New-York
Historical Society
consum-
mated the purchase
by
raising
four
thousand dollars
through public subscription.) The
Alliance's
great-
est asset
had
always
been
that
unwavering conviction
of
the
self-made
woodsman that these aspects of the
vanishing
American wilderness
must
be
put
on
record,
whatever it
cost,
faithfully
and
for
all
to
see,
while it
could
still
be
done.
Certainly
no
naturalist
had
ever
won such a
popular audience.
For all
the
carnage it
may
have
involved,
in
the end
and
under
the
circum-
stances,
this
was conservation
in
its
most realistic and
empirical
form.
Marshall B. Davidson,
a
member
of
the Advisory
Board
of
American
Heritage,
is
editor
of
publications
at
the
Metro-
politan Museum
of
Art
and
author
of
Life
in America.
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The
Boodling
Boss
and the Musical
Mayor
CONTINUED
FROM
PACE
a
few
blocks to
their home
in
the Palace
Hotel.
One
day
in
1907,
after
two
plots
to
kill
him had
misfired, Older
was
lured
into
a
trap
by
an
anonymous
telephone
call
promising
him
important
informa-
tion
if
he
would come
to
the
Savoy
Hotel
on
Van
Ness
Avenue.
He
could
not
resist
the
invitation,
al-
though he warned his
colleagues
at
the
Bulletin
that it
might be
a
trick.
As
he walked
toward
the hotel
an
automobile with four
occupants
stopped
beside him.
He was shown
a
Los Angeles warrant
for his
arrest,
and
was
told
to
get into the
car.
A
day
or so
earlier,
a
reporter for
the
Bulletin
had,
for one
edition,
con-
fused
the
identity
of
two
men
named
Brown,
one
of
whom
was head of
the
secret service
for
the
United
Railroads.
This
man had
gone to an
obscure
justice
of
the peace
in
Los Angeles,
475
miles away,
and ob-
tained a
warrant
for
Older's
arrest
on
a
charge
of
criminal libel. Of
the
four men in
the
automobile, two
were private
detectives representing
the United
Rail-
roads;
the
other
two
were deputies
representing
the
Los
Angeles justice
of
the peace.
In
the
automobile. Older
was
told
he
would
be
taken
to
the chambers
of
a
San Francisco
judge, where
he
could arrange
for
bail. Instead,
the
car shot away
out of
the
city at
high
speed,
while
one
of
his
captors
kept
a
gun
pressed into the
editor's ribs; in an accom-
panying car, Older
recognized
several employees of
the
United
Railroads. By
now
he was
really
fright-
ened, suspecting
that
they
intended
to
kill
him.
He
was
right.
Gangland
had
not
yet learned to
use the
term, but
Older
was
being taken
for
a
ride.
The two
Los Angeles men planned to
take
him
aboard
a
train
at
a
station
a
few
miles down
the coast,
leave the
train
at
another
station
in
the early
morning, and
take
Older
up
into wild mountain country.
There
he
would
be
shot while
attempting
to
escape.
Older's
life
was saved by an
extraordinary
develop-
ment.
The Los Angeles men, since
they
were
technically
court
officers,
made
no
attempt
to conceal
Older's
presence
on
the
train, and took
him
into
the
dining
car
for
dinner.
A
young
San
Francisco
attorney
happened
to
be on the same
train,
thought he
recog-
nized
Older,
and
grew
curious
as
to
why
he was travel-
ing with
such
odd companions.
When
one
of the Los
Angeles deputies admitted
Older's
identity,
the
lawyer
broke
his
journey,
got
off
the train in
the
middle of the
night at
a
way
station, and
telephoned
the office
of
the
San
Francisco
Call, owned by
the
brother of
Rudolph
Spreckels,
who
was
working
with
the graft prosecution.
Is
Fremont
Older
missing,
by any
chance? the
at-
torney
asked.
My
God,
yes, came the
answer.
The
whole
city is
looking
for
him.
The
attorney described Older's
situation.
A
judge
in
Santa Barbara,
a few miles
north
of
Los
Angeles, was
routed
out of bed
by
a
long-distance telephone
call,
and
a
writ of
habeas
corpus was
issued.
In spite
of
the
early
hour, word
of
what
was
hap-
pening spread
through
Santa Barbara,
and
when
the
train
reached
the city
the
station was thronged
with
interested citizens.
Must
be
a
wedding party, said one of the
kidnap-
pers
as
he
looked out the
compartment
window. But
he
was
wrong;
a
sheriff's
posse boarded
the
train and
took
Older
into custody.
A
few
hours later,
in
a
Santa
Barbara
courtroom, he
was
set
free.
His
four
captors
were
subsequently
arrested;
the
two
from
Los
Angeles
turned state's
evidence
and admitted
the plot
to
kill
Older. Of
the
other
two,
one
jumped
bail
and
was
never
recaptured;
the
fourth man,
brought to trial
a year
later, was acquitted
by
a
San
Francisco
jury
pre-
sumably influenced by
Ruef.
By
1905,
Older
and
those
working with him had re-
alized
that
the
grafters controlled nearly
all
the
ma-
chinery
of justice
so
completely
that outside help
would
be
necessary,
and
that
this
would
be
very
ex-
pensive.
Two prominent
and
wealthy citizens sym-
pathized with
Older
and
were
helping
him
as
much as
possible. One
was
James
D. Phelan,
a
millionaire
busi-
nessman
(and afterward
United
States
senator) who
had given San
Francisco
an honest and efficient gov-
ernment
as
mayor for three terms,
just
before
Schmitz
took
office.
The other was Spreckels, who came of
a
wealthy family
but
had
quarreled with his father
and
made a
fortune of
his
own
before
he
was
thirty.
Phelan
and
Spreckels
promised
to
put
up the
money
for an
independent investigation
and
prosecution,
which
they
thought
would cost
$100,000
(the
final
tab
was
about
two
and
a
half
times that
much).
There was
no
doubt as to the
man they
wanted
as
prosecutor:
he
was
Francis
J.
Heney,
an attorney born
in
Lima,
New
York,
but raised in San
Francisco,
a
man
of
tremen-
dous
self-confidence,
a
bitter-end
fighter,
and
a
com-
bined bloodhound
and
bulldog when
he
was on the
trail of
evil-doing. At
the
moment, Heney was being
used
by
the
United
States
government
to prosecute
a
series
of
land-fraud cases in
Oregon.
Older went to
Washington
and
easily obtained the
promise of
Presi-
dent
Theodore
Roosevelt
to
have Heney lent to
the
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San Franciscans
as
soon
as
the
Oregon cases were
con-
cluded.
Since
this
was his
home
town, Heney gave his
services
without
pay
for
a
fight
that was to
last several
years.
He
brought with
him
William
J.
Burns,
a
de-
tective
who
had made a
notable
career
in the
Secret
Service of the United
States
Treasury Department.
So intent were Older
and his
friends
on
tracking
down
the
grafters
that
the
great
San
Francisco
earth-
quake and
fire
of
April
18,
1906,
which
cost
more
than
four hundred lives
and almost
completely destroyed
all
the
important
parts
of
the
city,
delayed them
only
temporarily.
A
few
weeks
later
the prosecution
was
ready
to
proceed.
With great
audacity
Ruef, well
aware
of
what
was
going
on,
struck first.
The
district attorney,
William H.
Langdon,
had
been
appointed
with Ruef's
consent
but had
unex-
pectedly
turned
out to
be
honest,
and had co-operated
with
the
prosecution by
appointing Heney
as
an assist-
ant
district
attorney. Ruef
responded
by
ordering
Mayor
Schmitz to dismiss Langdon and replace him by
none
other than
Ruef
himselfl
The
prosecution suc-
ceeded in
bringing the
matter
into
court
the next
day,
and
the
judge
agreed
to
give
his decision at
2
p.m. In
the
early
morning, Older
rushed
out a
special
edition
of the
Bulletin telling
what
was happening,
and
dis-
tributed many
thousands
of
free
copies
throughout
the
city. The paper
invited honest residents
of
San
Fran-
cisco to come at
the zero hour
and line
up on the
lawn
outside the
judge's
chambers,
which
happened
to
be
on
the
ground
floor.
Many hundreds
of leading citizens
responded,
and
as
two
o'clock approached, they stood
packed
together and silent,
looking in at
the
judge.
He
ruled
for
Langdon.
The
prosecution
began
its
work
with
plenty
of
sus-
picion
of
bribery, but
little
solid
evidence.
Indeed,
on
several
occasions both
Older
and Heney
made public
charges,
which
Older printed
in
the Bulletin,
that
went far
beyond
anything
they
were able to
prove.
The first
break
came, as
it
so
often does,
when
the
thieves
fell
out. Two minor members
of the graft
ring,
joint
owners of
a
skating
rink, had
reasons
to
dislike
Ruef
and
to
respect the
power
of
Older and
Heney.
They now
approached the
prosecution with
offers
to
help,
and a
trap
was
set
for
some of
the
dishonest
supervisors.
The
prosecution prepared
an
ordinance that would
have crippled the
operations
of
the
skating
rink by for-
bidding
entrance
to unchaperoned minors, and Mayor
Schmitz
was tricked
into
sponsoring
it
with
the
Board
of Supervisors.
Several members
were
then
sounded
out
as to
whether
they would be
willing
to
vote against
it
for
a
suitable
sum
of money.
This was
long before
the
days
of dictaphones,
but
the trap was set
efficiently,
nonetheless. The first supervisor
was approached
in
the
office
of the
skating
rink, and while Burns and
two
other
men watched through holes bored in the
wall,
he
accepted
$500
in
marked
bills.
Another
supervisor
fell for
the same ruse.
A
third
was
bribed
in the home
of
one
of the
skating-rink owners while Burns,
a
stenog-
rapher,
and
another
witness
watched
from
a darkened
adjoining
room through folding
doors
left slightly
ajar.
From
the
beginning,
the
prosecution
wanted
to
reach
the
big
businessmen
who
gave
the bribes;
Heney
was
willing
to offer immunity
to
the
lesser figures, in-
cluding the
supervisors.
Such
offers
were
not legally
binding
on
the courts, but
judges
usually respected
them.
With
the damaging evidence against
the
super-
visors
who had taken
the
money in
the
skating-rink
affair,
and with promises
of
immunity to their
col-
leagues,
Heney
soon had detailed and documented
confessions from almost
all
of
the
seventeen men.
The
grand jury was
known to be packed with
henchmen
of the
graft
ring,
and
a
new
one was clearly
needed.
District Attorney
Langdon
dismissed the old
jury
and
had
an
honest
one
impaneled.
Ruef
and
Schmitz were
promptly indicted for
mulcting
the
French
restaurants.
Both
men
exhausted
every legal
avenue
to avoid
trial,
or to
postpone
it as
long
as
possible. When
Ruef's case came up,
he
did
not
appear
in court,
ap-
parently
believing that through
a
legal technicality he
was not required to
do
so;
he
was promptly arrested.
Since the
sheriff was
one
of
his own
men,
the
duty
of
guarding
him was
transferred to the coroner.
But
he,
also,
was in the
graft ring,
and was
not
to be
trusted.
Ruef
was
therefore confined
in
a
hotel
under
the care
of
William
J.
Biggy,
a
special
officer called an
elisor.
Heney,
eager
to
reach
the men
higher up, now of-
fered Ruef
immunity
if he
would
confess. For a long
time
the
little
boss
refused;
his story
was
that
all the
money paid
him
by
everybody
had
been
merely
legal
fees. But at
last
he
broke
down, after
many
appeals by
two
rabbis
and
a
dramatic
scene
in
the bedroom
of
his
mother,
who
was
gravely
ill.
He
then
made
a
complete
confession,
naming those
who
had
bribed him and
telling
the
amounts
and
where the
money had gone.
Describing the members
of
his own
graft ring, he re-
marked that
They
were so
greedy
they
would
eat
the
paint off
the
City
Hall,
leading the
public
to
call
them,
for years
thereafter,
the
paint
eaters.
Schmitz was
now
tried
on
the extortion indictment.
Although
he
pursued
the
course
that
he
followed to
the
day
of
his
death—
flatly
denying every charge, no
matter
what
anyone else
might
say—
he
was
found
guilty
and sentenced
to
prison.
Before this,
the
ques-
tion had
arisen as
to
whether
the
supervisors, nearly
all of
whom had
now
confessed
to
accepting bribes.
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should
be
turned
out of
office, and
the
prosecution
had
approved
keeping
them
in their
places
temporarily,
lest Ruef
should furnish
a
new
and
worse set from his
seemingly
endless
supply
of
underworld
characters.
As
Lincoln
Steffens
pointed
out
at
the time,
this
Board of
Supervisors
was
the
best
in
America :
they
did not
dare
misbehave
further,
with
their
confessions
of
wrongdoing
on
record.
With
Schmitz in
jail,
and
with
no
honest
replacement
in
sight,
the
prosecution
agreed
to
put one of
the
bribe-taking
supervisors
into the
mayor's
office
temporarily.
As Heney
began
to tighten
the
noose
on the big
businessmen
who
were
behind
the
corruption,
a
sud-
den
turn
appeared
in
San
Francisco
public
opinion. As
long
as
the
quarry
had been
men
from
the
lower
social
strata,
the best
people
had heartily
approved;
but
now
Heney's
detectives
were
getting
close
to important
citizens,
and
the
prosecution
quickly
became
highly
unpopular.
Western
rough-and-tumble
mores
still
pre-
vailed;
the
businessmen
who were
accused were,
after
all,
self-made
men
and
leaders
of the
community.
As
for
trade-union
members,
they
still
thought
of Schmitz
as their
spokesman.
Since
Ruef was
a
Jew,
the prosecu-
tion
was
accused
of anti-Semitism;
since Patrick
Cal-
houn,
the
streetcar
tycoon,
had
come
from
Georgia,
the bloody
shirt
was
waved.
Several
of the
other men
who
had taken
bribes
belonged
to
the
Protestant
Epis-
copal
Church,
and
Heney
and
Older
were attacked
for
prejudice
against that
institution.
Those allied
with
the
prosecution
were
subjected
to
pressure
both
subtle
and
direct.
Big
advertisers
with-
drew from
Older's Bulletin,
and wealthy
depositors
took
their
money
out of
Rudolph
Spreckels' First
Na-
tional
Bank.
The foreman
of
the
honest
grand jury,
Bartley P.
Oliver,
was in
the
real-estate
business;
he
was
boycotted
severely.
(When it
was
all over,
he had
to move away
from
San
Francisco
and
start life
anew,
as did
Heney.)
Calhoun,
while
under
indictment,
was
asked
to a
dinner
at
the
fashionable
Olympic
Club, where
he was warmly
applauded
and asked
to make
a
speech;
when
one
of the oldest
members
of the club.
Dr.
Charles
A.
Clinton, protested,
he
was
expelled—
and
Calhoun
was elected
in
his
place. Mrs.
Fremont
Older
described
the
social
ostracism:
Members
of the
prose-
cution were not
bidden
to
entertainments
where
peo-
ple of
fashion
gathered
. . .
[where]
women
reserved
their
sweetest smiles for
the
candidates
for
state's
prison
. . .
[and]
to
ask
whether
one believed
in
loot-
ing
the city
became
a
delicate
personal
question.
The
Bulletin was
the
center
of the
storm,
and
the
members
of its
staff
worked under
a
tremendous
strain;
I myself
saw
plenty
of
evidence
of
this. Many
reporters
and advertising
solicitors
habitually
carried revolvers.
Every
setback
for
the
prosecution—and
there were
many—
became
a personal
tragedy
to everybody
who
worked for
Older.
The change
in the
city's moral
climate
was soon reg-
istered in
the actions
in
the courts.
Tirey
L.
Ford,
who
had
bribed
Ruef
with
$200,000
on
behalf
of Calhoun,
was tried
three
times;
in spite
of
ample
evidence of
his
guilt,
the jury
disagreed
once,
and
twice
he
was
ac-
quitted.
(Each
trial was
for
bribing
a
different
super-
visor; there
were
so
many of these
cases
that the
prose-
cution
could
have gone on for
years.)
The
higher
courts of
the
state,
many of
whose
members
were
deeply
respectful
of
men
of property,
also conspicu-
ously sided against
the
prosecution. The
district court
of
appeals soon
freed
Schmitz, on astonishing
grounds:
he was not guilty
of extortion,
it said,
because
the
French restaurants
were
undoubtedly
houses of
pros-
ATO.NEMENT
This
San Francisco Examiner
cartoon
of
May 16,
igoj, shows
Ruef
offering
up
to Justice the heads
of
some
of
the
powerful
men
he
had
implicated in
his confession: Patrick Calhoun
and
Tirey
L.
Ford
of
the
United Railroads;
Louis
Glass,
vice
president and
general manager
of
the
Pacific
States Tele-
phone Company;
William F. Herrin,
chief
counsel
for
the
Southern
Pacific;
and
Ruef's
puppet.
Mayor Eugene
Schmitz.
102
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titution, and their licenses
could
properly have
been
revoked;
to
threaten
to do
a
legal
act is not extortion.
The state supreme
court upheld
this
remarkable argu-
ment and
added
one of its
own: that the whole
trial
of
Schmitz was illegal
anyway because
the indictment
had failed
to
mention that
he
was mayor of
San Fran-
cisco,
or
that
Ruef was a
political
boss
In
this
atmosphere
of
mounting
community disap-
proval,
Ruef
was
finally
tried for
bribery.
Because he
had
persisted,
in
trial
after trial, in
partly
repudiating
his confession and
in
insisting that
all payments made
to
him had been
merely
legal fees,
Heney canceled the
promise
of immunity;
Ruef
responded
by
pleading
not
guilty. The bitterness of San
Francisco
sentiment was
shown
by
the
fact that
getting
a
jury took from Au-
gust
27
until
November
6,
and used up a
panel of al-
most
fifteen
hundred
talesmen.
While examining prospective
jurors Heney
had
pub-
licly revealed
the
fact
that one man
on the
panel, Mor-
ris
Haas,
was
ineligible
because
he
had many years
earlier
served
a
term
in
San
Quentin
Prison.
Heney
did not
need to
humiliate
Haas
publicly in this way;
he did so
in
anger,
believing that Ruef was trying to
plant
the
man
on
the
jury. Haas
deeply
resented
Heney's action
and brooded over it
for
many
weeks.
While
the trial was in
temporary recess, Haas ap-
proached
Heney
in the
courtroom, whipped out
a
re-
volver, and shot
the
attorney
in
the
head;
the
bullet
lodged behind
the
jaw
muscles,
where a difference
of
a
fraction of
an
inch
in
any direction would
have
pro-
duced
a
fatal
wound.
Heney was
carried
away on
a
stretcher, mumbling, I'll get
him
[Ruef]
yet. His
place
was
taken
by
a
bright
young
assistant
named
Hiram
Johnson,
and
the
trial went on.
Haas was
placed in
a
prison cell with
a
policeman
to guard him; but in
spite of
these
precautions he was
found dead the
following
evening,
a
small
pistol
be-
side him. Those who
believed Haas had been
hired
by
Ruef
to
murder
Heney now believed, naturally,
that
some
other gangster
in
Ruef's employ had
done
away
with Haas
so
that
he
could
not talk. The
chief of
po-
lice was
deeply
hurt
by
Heney's
public criticism of
him
for
negligence
in
the Haas case, so
much
so
that
some
time later
he
committed suicide
by
jumping
overboard
from
a
launch
during
a
nighttime
crossing of
San
Fran-
cisco Bay.
Heney
did
not
die,
as
he
had
been
expected
to,
and
some days
later
the trial
was
concluded. Detective
Burns
had
given
Johnson
the names
of
four
jurors
who. Burns said,
had
been
bribed,
and in
his
summa-
tion
Johnson
called each
of
them
by
name,
pointed
a
forefinger
at him, and
shouted:
You—you
dare not
ac-
quit
this
mani
Nevertheless,
when
the
jury
retired
for
its
deliberations
everyone expected that it would
let
Ruef
go,
or
would disagree, as had happened in almost
every other
case
growing
out
of
the graft
prosecution.
While
the jury
was out Heney telephoned
Older to
say
that
he was much
recovered,
and
proposed
to
come
down
and
pay
his respects to the
judge. Older, with
his
usual flair
for the dramatic, told Heney not to come
until
the editor gave the signal. While most of
the
community was
by
now against the
prosecution,
there
was
a
minority
on
the
side
of honesty,
which
had
organized
a
League
of
Justice
pledged
to help at
a mo-
ment's notice.
Older
now hastily sent word to dozens
of
these
men,
who
came
and
crowded into the
court-
room,
which was directly
under
the chamber in which
the jury
was
deliberating.
Evelyn Wells, in her
biog-
raphy of
Older,
tells
what
happened when
Heney
entered
the
courtroom
on
Older's arm:
The
minutemen
raised
a shout of
welcome.
Older himself
trumpeted like a bull
elephant. The
rest
of the crowd
joined
in. . . . It
was
a
cheer of
welcome,
but to the scared jury
on
the floor
above
it sounded like
a
bellowed
demand for
lynching.
A
few minutes
later
twelve good
men and
true
filed
hurriedly
into the
courtroom. They
had hastily made
up their
minds.
All were
deathly white. Some trembled.
A
few were
weeping.
But
their verdict
was
Guilty, and
Ruef
was
sen-
tenced
to
fourteen years
in prison. Of
all the
sentences
meted out to
leading
figures
in
the whole
course
of the
prosecution,
it was the only
one
that
was made to
stick.
Another
municipal election was approaching, and
Langdon,
the
weary and battered
district
attorney,
re-
fused to run
again.
He
was discouraged,
with
good
reason: a
key
witness,
the
supervisor
who
had
paid
off
his
fellows
on
Ruef's
behalf,
had fled
the
country. In
desperation, Heney
himself ran
for
district
attorney,
and
was defeated
by a
football
hero
from Stanford
University,
Charles M. Fickert, whose liaison
with
the
grafters was notorious.
Fickert
promptly
and
contemptuously
refused to
go
on
with
any
of
the pending cases
against
the
big
businessmen. He pretended
not
to
know the
where-
abouts
of
the supervisor
who had
fled,
although
every-
one else
knew
that
he was
rusticating
in Vancouver,
British
Columbia. William
P.
Lawlor,
the
honest
judge
who had presided
in several
of
the cases,
excoriated
Fickert
and ordered
the others
to
trial;
but he was
over-
ruled
by
the court of
appeals,
which
decided
that all
of
the large
number
of
remaining
indictments
should
be
quashed.
The graft prosecution was
over, having ended in al-
most
total failure,
with
only
Ruef
in
prison.
Or so
it seemed.
But the
future was in fact
brighter
than any member of
Older's
group
could
have dared to
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hope.
Even
in the
middle
of the
fight, a
new
mayor
had been elected,
Dr. Edward
Robeson
Taylor,
who
was not only
a leading physician but
a
leading
attor-
ney as well; although
he had stood
aloof from
the graft
prosecution,
he was
a man
of
unquestioned
probity
who could
be relied
upon
to
put
an
end to the thiev-
ing.
Moreover, the proceedings in
the
various cases
had
been
watched
not only
in San
Francisco
but
throughout
the
state,
where
many
people
did
not
share
the
San
Franciscans'
laissez-faire attitude to-
ward
crime.
Hiram
Johnson
had become
a
hero
by
tak-
ing Heney's
place;
he
now ran
for governor, with
the
blessing
of
Older
and
his
friends,
on a
platform
of
turn
the
rascals out —
the rascals including not only
the
San Francisco
bribers
but
the
fixers for
the South-
ern
Pacific
Railroad and other
great business organiza-
tions
that
were not above stooping to corruption.
Johnson
was
overwhelmingly
elected
governor,
and
re-elected four
years
later, going from
that office to
the
United States Senate. As
governor
he
put
through
a
series
of
reforms, including changes
in
the
electoral
system,
that ended
forever most
of
the worst
practices
of
the
graft ring. Today, San
Francisco
has
an honest
government,
and
the business
organizations
(or their
successors) that handed
out
bribes
half a
century
ago
would look
with proper
horror
on
any
suggestion
that
they should now resort to
the
old
tactics.
Having finally
put
Ruef into
prison.
Older
began
to
have
qualms of conscience.
He
felt that
the
promise
of
immunity
had
been too
cavalierly
broken,
that per-
haps
the
community was more guilty than
the
little
boss,
and
that Ruef
had
been made a scapegoat
for
many
worse
men.
The
editor
now began
a campaign
in
the
Bulletin for
Ruef's
release, but no one
in
a posi-
tion
of
power shared his new-found
Tolstoian attitude,
and Ruef
was
not
paroled until
he had
served
a
full
half
of his net
sentence
of nine years (after
deduc-
tions
for
good
behavior
and
for
time in prison
await-
ing
trial).
His release
came
one month
after
it was
legally
possible—
after
four years and
seven months.
In
some other
cases. Nemesis
seemed
to
be
at
work.
Fickert,
a
few
years
later,
was
discovered
to
have
used
a
perjured witness
to
send
Tom
Mooney
to prison,
and
his
career
ended
in
disgrace.
One
of
the
members
of
the
state supreme
court,
who
cast
the deciding vote
in some three-to-four
decisions,
was proved to
have
ac-
cepted
a bribe
of
$410,000
a
few years
earlier
in an
important
case
involving the estate of a wealthy
Cali-
fornian,
James
G. Fair.
Patrick Calhoun
lost
his
for-
tune in
land speculation, though
many years
later
he
partially recouped
his losses in another city. Ruef,
re-
leased from prison, went into the real-estate
business
and
after some
successes,
went downhill
into
deepening
poverty
until
he
died
bankrupt,
a
quarter
of
a
century
after
he
had gone to
prison.
Ex-Mayor
Eugene
Schmitz fared better
than any
of
his
associates.
He
brazened
it out in San
Francisco
for
almost
two decades;
the
city, perhaps
remembering
Steffens' advice
that the
best possible
official
is one
who
has
already
been
proved
dishonest, elected
him
to sev-
eral
successive
terms—on
the Board
of Supervisors
Bruce
Bliven
served
under
Fremont
Older on the
San
Fran-
cisco
Bulletin
during
the prosecution
of
Ruef
and
Schmitz.
For many
years
an
editor
of
the
New
Republic,
he
is now
a
lecturer at
Stanford
University.
'^'^'\P'^'v''^'^'^^'\?'^'s?'^'^'7'y'^'^'^'^'^'^'^^
MODEL
FOR
CORRECT
ACCEPTANCE
OF
A
PROPOSAL
Sir:
The attentions which
you
have
so
long and so
assiduously shown
to
me
have
not escaped my notice;
indeed how
could they,
since
they
were directed
exclusively
to me? .
.
.
I admit the truth, that pleased and
flattered
by such
attentions,
I
fondly
endeavored
to
persuade
myself
that
attachment
toward
me
had
formed
itself
in your
breast.
Judge
then, what must have been
my
feelings
on
reading the contents
of
your letter,
in which
you
propose to
pay your
addresses,
in
a
manner,
the
object
of
XL'hich cannot be mistaken—that I may
regard
you as
my
acknowl-
edged
suitor,
and that
you
have chosen
me
as the most
likely
to
contribute
to
your
happiness
in
the married
state.
On
consulting
my
parents, I
find
that
they
do
not
object to your
proposal;
therefore, I
have
only
this to
add—
may we still entertain the same
regard
which
we
have
hitherto
cherished
for
each
other, until it shall ripen
into
that
affection which
wedlock shall
sanction,
and
which
lapse
of
time
will
not
allow to
fade.
Believe
me
to be.
Yours,
sincerely attached.
Emily
Thornwell,
The Ladies'
Guide
to Perfect Gentility, New York,
1859.
Reprinted in the
Bulletin,
Missouri
Historical
Society,
July,
1959.
104
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The
Battle
That
IVon an
Empire
CONTINUED
FROM
PACE
Jl
ill the near
future—
before
gales and
frost
would
come
to
the
relief
of
the
French.
Faced
with
an
enemy
strongly
entrenched in
a
posi-
tion that
commanded
the
approach to
Quebec,
Wolfe's
problem
was
to
lure
him
out of
his fastness.
The
only
way
of
doing
this
was
to
bait
a
trap.
To
this
end
Wolfe
—who
had
already
dispatched
Monckton's
brigade
to
Pointe
Levi—
now
landed
(during the
night of
July
9)
the
bulk
of
Townshend's
and
Murray's
brigades on
the
north
shore,
just
below
the
falls of the
Montmor-
ency
River.
This
dispersion of
his force
has been
much
criticized
by
military
historians.
But
the
objections,
while
in
accord with
abstract
theory, tend to
overlook
the
actual
circumstances.
In
view
of
the
almost
impregnable
position
in
which
Montcalm was
posted, Wolfe had
to take
risks
to
lure
the enemy
into
the
open. In
this case the
risks were
slight.
Wolfe's
command
of
the
river
gave
him
the
power
of
movement, for reinforcement
of
either
por-
tion if
engaged.
His
troop
distribution gave
him
the
power
of
siuprise
by
keeping
Montcalm
in
uncer-
tainty and
apprehension as
to
the
direction
of
Wolfe's
real
move.
Moreover,
Wolfe had
ample
evidence that
the
French
were disinclined to
take the
offensive,
and
his
confidence in
the strong
superiority of
his own
troops in any
engagement
on
their own
ground—
a
con-
fidence which was
abundantly
justified—
gave him se-
curity
that
any
part that
was
attacked
could hold its
own
for
the
time
until
reinforcements crossed
the river.
This
understanding
of
Wolfe's
object
and
the condi-
tions
sheds
light
on
Townshend's statement,
and
com-
plaint, that on
inspecting his front, Wolfe
disapproved
of it,
saying I had
indeed
made
myself secure, for I
had
made
a
fortress.
Townshend
failed to
realize
that he
was
spoiling Wolfe's
bait,
for
if the
French would not
come out to
attack the
English
in
the
open,
they
cer-
tainly
would not
venture
against
an
enemy visibly
in
a
strongly
fortified
position.
Far
from
Wolfe
being
in danger,
neither this
bait
nor
the
gradual
destruction
of
the city by
bombard-
ment
could
stir the cool and
wary French
commander
—who
remarked
to his
subordinates: If
you
drive
Wolfe and
his
two
brigades away, they
will
be
trouble-
some
somewhere else.
While they are
there, they
can-
not
do much harm.
So
let
them
amuse
themselves.
By
any
normal gauge, he
was justified
in
reckoning that
he
could keep
his attackers
at bay until
winter
com-
pelled their
retreat.
The
next British
move
was a naval
one.
On the
night
of
July
18, a
frigate
and
some
smaller vessels
slipped
past the
guns
of
Quebec,
under cover
of
a
heavy British bombardment
from Pointe
Levi, and
an-
chored above
the city. This at
least
forced
Montcalm
to detach
six
hundred men to
guard
the
few
paths
up
the
cliffs
in
the eight-mile
stretch above
Quebec
be-
tween
the
city
and
Cap
Rouge. \Volfe
at once
recon-
noitered
the
upper
river for
a
possible
landing
on
the
north
shore,
but
after
restless
meditation
decided
that
both
the
difficulties and the
risks were too
great. As
he
wrote
to
Pitt:
What
1
feared
most
was,
that if we
should have
landed
between
the
town
and the
river
of
Cap Rouge
the
body first landed could
not
be
rein-
forced before
they
were
attacked by
the
enemy's
whole
army.
A
landing
still higher up the river, which
some
critics
have
suggested,
would
not only
have
given
Montcalm time to occupy
fresh lines on that
side,
but
would have widely
separated Wolfe's army
from
the
main part
of the fleet
and
his base—
a
far
more
danger-
ous
dispersion
than
that
which
these
critics
condemn
at Pointe Levi and
Montmorency.
His
communications
would have been
stretched
like
a
narrow cord
with a
knife—
Quebec—
grazing the middle.
But
the
weeks
were
slipping
by,
and
Wolfe felt
bound to
try
some
daring measure to
draw out
the
French,
if
he
could
find
one less
desperate
than
a
land-
ing
above
Quebec.
Below the
town he was
separated
from tlie French
by
the
Montmorency,
which
flows
swift
and deep
for
many miles until it
tumbles
over
the falls,
a
250-foot
drop,
just
before entering
the
St.
Lawrence.
Wolfe had
tried
in
vain
to
discover
a
prac-
ticable ford above the falls
by
which he
could turn
the
front
of
the
French. But
only
below
the falls
does it
run broad
and
shallow.
A mile
to the west, up
the
St.
Lawrence, there was
a
narrow
strip
of
land
between
the
river and
the
heights
where
the
French
had
built
redoubts.
Wolfe now
planned to
land here
with all his
available
grenadiers and
part
of
Monckton's brigade
from Pointe
Levi—hoping,
by
the
capture
of
a de-
tached
redoubt,
to
tempt
the
French
army
down to
regain it, and
so
bring
on
a
battle in
the
open. Mean-
while, the
other
two
brigades
were to
be
ready
to join
him
by
fording the
lower
reaches
of
the
Montmorency,
where it can
be
waded.
On
July
31
the
attempt
was
made,
covered by
the
guns of several
ships and by
the
batteries across
the
Montmorency
gorge.
But
on
nearing
the
shore
Wolfe
perceived
that
the
redoubt was
too
much
commanded
to
be
kept
without
very
great loss,
and
drew off.
For
several hours
the
boats
rowed
up
and
down,
both to
confuse
the
enemy
and
to
enable
Wolfe to
sight
another
landing point.
Late
in
the
afternoon
the
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enemy,
marching
and
countermarching,
seemed
in
some confusion,
and Wolfe gave
the
signal for
a fresh
attempt.
Unluckily
many
of
the boats
grounded on
an unseen
ledge,
causing
further delay. Worse was to
follow,
for
when the troops
got
ashore, the
grenadiers
rushed
impetuously
on the
enemy's
entrenchments
without
waiting
for
the
main
body
to
form
up.
As a
storm
of
fire broke
in their faces, a storm of
rain
broke
on
their
heads,
and
the
steep
slopes,
slippery
with
blood
and
water,
became
unclimbable,
while
the
mus-
kets
became
unfireable.
Realizing
that
his plans
had
gone
awry,
Wolfe
broke
off
the
fight and re-embarked
the troops.
It
was
a
severe
setback, and
the
French
were proportionately
elated.
The
Governor wrote
home:
1
have no
more
anxiety
about
Quebec.
Neither in
his
frank dispatches
to Pitt
nor
to
his
troops
did Wolfe show any loss
of
heart, but
his
last
letter to his mother, on August
31,
reveals
his
declin-
ing hope
and
his feeling that he was
on
the
verge of
professional
ruin:
The
enemy
puts
nothing to
risk,
and
I
can't in
conscience,
put
the
whole
army
to
risk.
My
antagonist has
wisely shut himself
up
in inacces-
sible entrenchments, so that I can't get at
him
without
spilling
a
torrent
of blood, and
that
perhaps to
little
purpose. Then he
went on
to say:
I approve
entirely
of
my
father's disposition
of
his
affairs, though
per-
haps
it
may
interfere
a
little
matter with
my
plan
of
quitting
the
service, which
I
am
determined
to do
the
first opportunity.
Wolfe knew
that
where age
can
blunder
and be
forgiven,
youth must
seal
its presump-
tion with
success
if it is to
survive
inevitable
jealousy.
Dejected
in mind,
he
fell ill in
body,
but saying
to
his
surgeon,
I
know
perfectly
well
you
cannot
cure
my
complaint,
he
demanded: Patch
me
up
so that I
may
be
able
to do my
duty
for
the
next few days,
and
I shall
be
content.
He
had
been
laid
low
on August
19,
but before
this
he
had
initiated
a starvation
campaign
against
the
French, sending detachments
to lay waste
the coun-
try around,
although
he
gave strict orders for
the
good
treatment
of
women and
children.
More important
still
was
a
move to cut
off their
main
supplies,
which
came
downstream from Montreal.
For weeks,
more
and
more
British
ships
had
slipped
past
the
guns of
Que-
bec, and on
August
5,
after
being
joined by Murray
with
twelve
hundred
troops in
flatboats,
they were
sent
upstream to
harass
the
French shipping and
shores.
The
diversion, moreover, forced
Montcalm
to
detach
another
fifteen
hundred
men
under Louis
de
Bougainville
to
prevent
a
landing
west
of
Quebec.
Economic pressure is
a slow
weapon,
however,
and
Wolfe feared
that winter
might
stop
operations before
it could achieve
its
object.
From his
sickbed
he sent
a
message
asking
his brigadiers to consult
together
on
a
fresh
move,
suggesting
three possible
variations
of
the
Montmorency
plan. Murray had now
returned,
and
the
three, in reply,
proposed instead
to
carry
the
operations above
the
town,
and try to establish
our-
selves on
the
north shore —but
without any
detailed
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suggestions as
to
how
and
where
it was
to be
done.
Wolfe,
as
we
know, had
conceived
this idea
before,
and
reluctantly
abandoned it.
But
now the
situation
was
modified,
both
because
he
had
got
so
many
of
his
ships
upriver
and
because,
after
the
Montmorency
plan
had failed,
a
gamble was
more
justified-and
in-
evitable.
On
September
3
Wolfe
evacuated
the
Montmorency
camp,
and
on
the
fifth, after
concentrating
his
forces
on
the south
shore,
he
marched
the
bulk, some
thirty-
six
hundred
men,
overland
up
the river
bank,
and em-
barked them in
the
ships.
Montcalm
thereupon
rein-
forced
Bougainville,
who
was
at
Cap
Rouge,
with
another
fifteen
hundred
men,
although
feeling
confi-
dent that it
was a
ruse of
Wolfe's—
who, he
remarked,
is
just
the man
to
double
back
in
the night.
Each
day
the
ships drifted up
and
down with
the
tide,
perplexing
the
French
command
and wearing
out
their
troops
with
ceaseless
marching
and
counter-
marching,
while
Wolfe
reconnoitered
the
cliffs
through
a
telescope
for a
possible
point of
ascent.
While
his
brigadiers
were
searching
elsewhere,
he
observed a
winding
path
up
the cliffs at
the Anse
au
Foulon,
only
a
mile
and
a
half above
Quebec, and noticed that it
was
capped by
a
cluster of less
than
a
dozen
tents.
Deeming
the
spot almost
inaccessible,
the French had
posted
there
only
a
small
picket.
Wolfe's
choice
was
made,
but
he kept it secret
until
the eve
of
the
venture. On
September 10
he
informed
Colonel
Burton
of
the
Forty-eighth
Foot,
who was to
be
left
in
charge of the
troops on the
south
shore, and
on
the eleventh he issued
a
warning
order
for the em-
barkation
of
the
troops the
next
night.
On
the
twelfth
he
issued
his orders
for
the
attack,
ending
on
the
note,
The officers
and men
will
remember
what
their coun-
try expects
of
them
...
[to be]
resolute
in
the
execu-
tion of
their
duty —
the germ
of
Nelson's
message
at
Trafalgar.
That evening, in his
cabin
on
H.M.S. Suth-
erland,
Wolfe
sent
for his
old
schoolfellow,
John
Jervis—
later famous
as
Earl St. Vincent,
but
then com-
manding
a
sloop—
and
handed over his
will, together
with
a
miniature
of
his promised
bride,
Catherine
Lowther, with
instructions
to
return it to
her
in
the
event of
his death.
Just
before sunset.
Admiral
Saunders
with
the
main
fleet
drew out along the
shore
opposite
Montcalm's
camp
below
Quebec,
and,
lowering
the
boats
to
sug-
gest
a
landing,
opened a
violent
fire.
This
ruse fulfilled
its purpose
of
fixing the enemy,
for Montcalm
concen-
trated
his
troops at
Beauport
and kept them
under
arms
during
the
night—
miles
away
from
the
real
dan-
ger
point.
While
the
French
were
straining their
eyes
to
detect
the
threatened
landing, a single
lantern rose
to
the maintop of
the
Sutherland, upriver,
and sixteen
hundred troops
of the
first
division
noiselessly
em-
barked
in their flatboats. At
2
a.m.,
as
the
tide
began
to
ebb,
two
lanterns rose and flickered, and
the whole
flotilla dropped
silently
downstream, the
troops
in
boats
leading. Discovery was
narrowly averted when
a
French-speaking British officer twice
replied to a sen-
Gibes
from
the
Officer
s *
Mess
During
the Quebec
campaign. Brigadier
George
Townshend
turned
his
hand to
cartoons, three
of
which
appear here.
Like
most
such
efforts,
they belong on the
level
of
bar-
racks-room
humor,
and they
were
most
displeasing
to
Wolfe.
A
stickler
for
proper
fortifications,
he once
saw
one
of
Townshend's
sketches
showing him building
trenches
around
a
brothel.
If
we
live, he told
Townshend,
paling
and pocketing
the
paper,
this shall
be
enquired
into.
As
the
skirmishing
around
Quebec grew
more
brutal. General
Wolfe
issued
proclamations threatening
reprisals
against
French-Canadian
prisoners. These
are satirized at
far
left
in
a
confrontation
between
Wolfe
and a
French
couple
and
at
near
left
in
a
conversation between
Wolfe
and
his
adjutant,
Isaac
Barre.
Wolfe's
fastidiousness,
and his frazzled
nerves,
are
also
made
fun
of
at
right,
where
he
is
pictured
urg-
ing a
Frenchman to
dig
a
latrine
to a
ridiculous
depth.
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try's
challenge
from
the
shore—
his deception
being
helped
by
the fact,
of
which
two
deserters
had
in-
formed
Wolfe, that
the
enemy was
expecting
a
con-
voy of provisions.
The
landing
was safely made at
the Foiilon
cove-
now
called Wolfe's Cove.
A
band of
picked
volunteers
clambered
up the
steep
cliff,
and
overpowered
the
French
picket
on the
summit. This coup covered
the
landing
of the
main
body.
Before
dawn
the
army,
rein-
forced
by another
twelve hundred
troops under
Colo-
nel
Ralph Burton
direct
from
the south
bank,
was
moving
toward Quebec.
Wolfe
had found,
on
the
Plains
of Abraham,
the
open
battlefield for
which
he
had thirsted.
Should he
be
beaten,
he was
certainly
in
a
desperate position,
but he had
sure ground
for
confi-
dence
in the quality of his own men to
offset
the
French quantity
in
an
open battle.
There was a
danger
that
Bougainville's detachment
might hasten back
from
Cap
Rouge
and fall
on
his
rear,
but
this menace
can easily
be
exaggerated
in
retrospect,
for
the
light
infantry
that
Wolfe
dispatched
to
guard
his
rear
was
capable
of
holding
Bougainville in check. A
worse
danger
was
that
Montcalm might
still decline
battle,
in
which
case
the
difficulty
of
bringing
up supplies
and
artillery might
have
made
Wolfe's position precarious.
But
a
military
appreciation
must
consider
the
moral
as
well
as
the material
elements,
and Wolfe's
appear-
ance on the Plains of
Abraham, close
to
the
city,
was
a
moral challenge an
opponent
could
hardly decline.
Wolfe
deployed
his force
in a
single line—
to
gain
the fullest value of his troops'
superior
musketry
—with
his left
thrown
back to guard
the inland
flank,
and
one
regiment (Webb's
Forty-eighth
Foot, com-
manded
by
Colonel Burton) in reserve.
Montcalm,
warned
too late,
hurried his troops westward across
the
St.
Charles
and
through
the city. Wolfe's
bait
this
time
had succeeded, even
beyond
expectation, and Mont-
calm attacked before his
whole
force
was on
the
spot-
probably because a large part
of it was pinned
by
fear
of
the
threatened
landing
below
Quebec.
The
clash was
preceded by
an attempt of
the
French
Canadian irregulars and
Indians to
work
around
to
Wolfe's
left,
but
although their fire
was
galling, their
effort
was too
uncontrolled
to be
effective. About lo
A.M. the French
main
body
advanced,
but
their
ragged
fire drew no
reply
from
the
British line,
obedient
to
Wolfe's
instructions
that
a
cool well
levelled
fire is
much more destructive and
formidable
than
the
quick-
est
fire
in
confusion.
He
himself was
shot through the
wrist, but,
wrapping
a
handkerchief
round
it, continued
his calls
to the
men to
hold their
fire.
At last, when
the
French
were
barely forty yards distant,
the
word
was
given,
and
the
British
line
delivered
a
shattering
vol-
ley,
repeated
it,
and
then,
on Wolfe's
signal, charged
a
foe
already
disintegrating.
At the
head of his picked grenadiers
Wolfe was an
inevitable
target. A bullet
penetrated
his groin, a sec-
ond his
lungs, and
he fell, unobserved
by
the
charging
ranks.
Only
an officer and
two
others, soon joined
by
an
artillery
officer, saw
what
happened, and
began
to
carry
him
to the rear. Realizing that
the
chest wound
was
mortal,
he
bade
them
put
him
down,
and
stopped
them
from
sending
for
a
surgeon. His
dying
words,
when told that
the
enemy
was on
the
run—
Now
God
be praised, I
die happy —are
historic. But
the
words
immediately
preceding—uttered on
the point
of
death
—are
a
finer tribute to
him
as
a
general:
Go,
one
of
you,
my
lads,
with all
speed to
Colonel Burton
and
tell
him to march
Webb's regiment down
to the St.
Charles
River,
and
cut
off the
retreat
of
the
fugitives
to the
bridge.
Monckton,
too,
had fallen wounded, and
the
com-
mand
thus
passed
to
Townshend, who
checked
the
pursuit—
which
might
have
rushed
the
city
gates
on
the
heels of the flying
foe—
in
order
to
re-form
the
army
and
turn
about to
face Bougainville's
belated
approach.
The sight
of the
British,
emphasized
by a
few
prelimi-
nary
shots,
was
sufficient
to
convince
Bougainville that
his
small force
had best seek a safe
haven, and
he re-
treated
rapidly.
In the
city all
was
confusion, for
in the
rout Mont-
calm
had been gravely wounded, and
that
night
the
wreckage of
the
French
army streamed away
up the
river
in
flight.
With
the
death of
the
gallant Mont-
calm—
to
complete
as
dramatic
a
battle as history re-
cords—and Townshend's energetic pressing
of
the
siege,
Quebec
surrendered four
days
later.
The fall of Quebec,
the
gate
of
Canada,
ensured the
collapse
of
French power
there
unless
it could soon be
recaptured. After
recuperating
in
Montreal
during
the
winter, the
French
moved
back
against
Quebec the fol-
lowing
April.
Murray, who
had
been
left in
command
of
the
garrison, moved out to
meet
them, and by un-
wisely
advancing
too far
got
his
troops
and
guns
bogged in
a
stretch
of frozen slush.
As
a result, he
was
driven
to
retreat
within the
walls
in
a badly
mauled
state.
But
the
French
abandoned
the
siege and
re-
treated to
Montreal
when
the first ships
of
the
British
relief
fleet
came up
the
river
ten
days
later. They put
up
no
serious
resistance to
the
subsequent
converging
advance
of
the
British
forces,
and
on
September
8
Vaudreuil
signed
the
surrender
of
Canada.
Basil
Henry
Liddell
Hart is a
former
British army
officer
and
journalist
who has
written some
thirty books on
military
science
and
history
and
is
an
internationally
known expert
in
those
fields.
108
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U^hen
Congress
Tried
to
Rule
CONTINUED
FROM PACE
6
in
his weakness.
Here
was a
President cut
off from
or-
ganized
political
support
and
violently
opposed
by
at
least
sixty per cent
of
the press,
an
Executive
who
probably
could
be
removed. The
proximity of the
end
of his
term,
instead
of
being
a
deterrent,
was a
spur,
since
it
might
be
a
long while
before
another
Presi-
dent
so
defenseless
and
vulnerable
came
along. Of
this fact
Stevens, facing
death, was
poignantly
aware.
The
anvil was
hot; the
time to
strike
was now.
If
this
Congress could
oust
a
President
because
he
dis-
agreed
with them,
what
was
to
prevent future
Con-
gresses from
ousting
other
Presidents for
the same
reason? The
result
was
bound
to
be a
gradual erosion
of
the
federal system
and
its replacement
by
something
akin
to
the
parliamentary
system of
Great
Britain,
a
system
in which
Congress
would rule
supreme—
with
the
executive
and,
in
time, the
judiciary as
satellites.
I
submit
that
therein
lies
the
major
significance
of
the
impeachment trial.
At
Appomattox, in
the spring
of
1865,
the
Civil War bled to its close.
In
the red
and
gold
well
of
the
Senate
chamber,
in
the
spring of
1868,
the war's
aftermath reached
its climax:
all the
rest of
Reconstruction
was
to
be
an ebbing
away from
this
moment,
a gradual
return to normal under
the
same
government erected by
the founding
fathers.
That
the
attempt
to
remove
Johnson
was a strictly
political
maneuver
is
a fact
with which
few
historians,
if
any, disagree
any
longer. The main
charge
was
that
he had
defied
the
Tenure of
Office Act of
1867,
which
forbade
the President,
under
certain
circumstances,
to
remove
a
Cabinet
member
without the consent
of
the
Senate. When
Johnson
dismissed
Lincoln's
enigmatic
Secretary of
War,
Edwin McMasters
Stanton, -(vhoni
he
had kept
on
along with
the rest of
Lincoln's Cabi-
net,
the
Senate
refused
its
consent.
Johnson
persisted
because of
Stanton's failure
to co-operate
with
the
Ad-
ministration
and
his alliance
with
its
opponents, and
the
Radicals in the lower
house, who for
more
than
a
year had been
seeking
some excuse
for
impeaching
the
President,
brought
him
to
trial before
the
Senate on
March
30,
1868.
The
Tenure
of
Office
Act
was
unconstitutional,
as
the Supreme
Court
would, many
years
later, declare.
Even so,
many of
the
best legal minds
of
the day went
along with
Johnson's
claim
that
his
dismissal
of
Stan-
ton was
not clearly
within
its meaning. For the act
contained
an
ambiguous
clause specifying
in
effect
that
Senate consent
to the removal
of
a
Cabinet
officer
was
required only if
he
were
dismissed
during the
term—plus one month—
of the
President who
had ap-
pointed him.
And
Johnson
had
not
appointed
Stanton.
As
for
the
remaining
accusations
in
the
wordy
Ar-
ticles of Impeachment, they
consisted
of
little
more
than the
allegation that
Johnson
had
exercised
his
constitutional
powers
as
Commander
in
Chief
al-
though
Congress
had passed a
law
forbidding
him
to
do
so,
along
with
the
assertion
that, at
divers
times
and
places, the President had
delivered speeches
of a
dis-
tasteful
nature in a loud
voice. So
niggling
were all
of
these charges that midway in the
trial
Benjamin F.
Butler
of
Massachusetts,
chief
prosecutor
for
the
House
impeachment
managers and
one
of
the
Presi-
dent's most implacable foes, confessed
that as a
lawyer
he
would give
anything
to
be
on
the
other side
of
the
case. But
Charles Sumner,
the
ponderous
Massachu-
setts
abolitionist,
dismissed
such
qualms as
of
no
con-
sequence
and
blatantly
advised
his
fellow
senators to
ignore
mere
matters
of
fact
and law in passing
judg-
ment. Let
each
senator,
Sumner
urged,
pronounce
the
words Guilty
or
Not
Guilty
in
accordance
with
his political
convictions.
Clearly,
then,
the trial was
political.
Abundant evi-
dence
that it
was also revolutionary
is
to be
found
in
the
events
out
of which it
grew.
When
Lincoln
died, Congress was in
recess,
and
this
gave
his successor for
several months
a
free
hand
to
initiate
Reconstruction.
In
spirit
Johnson's
plan
was
in
line with
ideas that
Lincoln had endorsed.
He
recognized the
loyal
governments set up
during
the
war
in
four
of the
formerly
Confederate
states.
In
each of
the other
seven
he
appointed
a
provisional
governor
empowered to
establish
a
permanent
civil
or-
ganization.
He
let
it
be
imderstood
that,
in
the
eyes of
llarpCT's II
On
March
2
Stevens
closed
the
impeachment
debate
in
the
House,
condemning the
President
as
a
great
malefactor.
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the
Executive, each
state
could
be
eligible for read-
mission
to
the
Union
as
soon as it
completed this
process,
provided
that simultaneously it
abolished
slavery within its
borders
(preferably by
ratifying
the
Thirteenth
Amendment), repudiated
its
Rebel war
debt,
and voided
its
ordinance
of
secession.
By the
time
the
first
session
of
the
Thirty-ninth
Congress con-
vened
on
December
4,
1865,
nine of the
eleven South-
ern
states—
all
but
Texas
and
Florida—
had
fulfilled
the President's
requirements,
with one or two
minor
deviations,
and
had
named
senators
and
representa-
tives
to
the
national legislature.
Had Congress accepted
these
representatives
from
the
South,
restoration—
if not Reconstruction, strictly
speaking—
would
have
been
practically
completed
at
this point. Congress did
not, and of
the elements
be-
hind
its
refusal,
two
were large
with future mischief.
One
was
the
growing
influence
of the iron-back,
or
Radical, wing
of
the
Republican party,
gravitat-
ing
in
the House
around Stevens and in
the
Senate
around
Sumner and Benjamin F. Wade of
Ohio.
The
commonly
held objective
that
enabled
them
to present
a
solid
front
was
their
determination to preserve
a
Republican
hegemony
in Congress. Obviously
the
President's
Reconstruction
program was
a threat
to
this,
for immediate seating
of
the Southern
repre-
sentatives
would reduce
the
nominal
Republican
ma-
jority in the House
from
ninety-eight
to about
forty,
and in
the Senate
from twenty-eight
to about
six.
The
Radicals
had
other
aims, but
their devotion
to party
domination
was the feature
that
most clearly distin-
guished
their
thinking
from
that of
the more
states-
manlike
Republican
moderates.
Harper's
Weekly,
march
28,_i868
On
March
7
George
T.
Brown,
Senate
sergeant
at arms,
served
Johnson
with
a
summons
for
the
trial.
Accepting
it,
the
President
promised
he
would
attend
to the matter.
The
other
important
element
was
the
fact that
the
Thirty-ninth,
like
all
Congresses convening imme-
diately
after
a
war,
was suffering the
pangs
of power
deficiency
and injured
dignity. For four
years the
leg-
islative branch
had
deferred
to
the executive. The
Thirty-ninth Congress
was
determined to reassert itself.
Notwithstanding
these
divisive
influences,
the
line-
up
in the Congress was not such as
to
make
a
break
with
the
Executive
inevitable.
The
Radicals
con-
trolled the House,
but in the
Senate
the
balance of
power lay with perhaps
a
dozen
Republican
moder-
ates of
the
caliber of William
Pitt Fessenden
of Maine
and
Lyman Trumbull
of
Illinois.
Where
the South
was
concerned
the
moderates
harbored
no
vindictive
or nakedly
political
aims. Their one
demand
was
that
as a
price
for
readmission
to
the
Union
the
seceded
states
give
concrete
evidence
of
their
willingness to
extend
the
blessings
of
the Bill
of
Rights
to some four
million
newly
freed
Negroes.
Had
Johnson
seen fit to make
concessions
in this
direction,
thus
inviting
the
support of the moderates,
he
might
have triumphed, but
he
would
not;
he
be-
lieved
that the extension
of
civil
and
political rights
to
the
Negroes was
a
state matter
and that
the
federal
government
should refrain from interfering—
at
least
until such time
as
the South
was once
more
fully
repre-
sented in Congress. Even without making
any
con-
cessions
he
might
have
salvaged
a
part
of
his
program
had
the Radicals not
been
led
by
Thad
Stevens,
a
politi-
cal
strategist
of
unique abilities.
Johnson
made
no
con-
cessions and Stevens made
many,
playing
his cards
so
ably that
by
the
end of
1866
the
President
was
locked
in
deadly
combat not
merely
with
the
Radicals but
with practically
the whole congiessional
majority.
From this point
on,
the
real
issue ceased
to be who
was to
control
Reconstruction,
the
Congress
or
the
Executive.
The issue had become
who
was
to
control
the
government. In December
of
1865
the
mood
of
Congress was
merely
aggressive.
A year
later
it had
be-
come conspiratorial.
Johnson's
enemies
tried
to
justify
their course
by
accusing
him
of conspiracy.
The closing days of 1866
found Congressman
George S. Boutwell,
the
fiery
Massachusetts
Radical,
closeted
with
Secretary
of
War
Stanton.
One can imagine Stanton's
perfumed beard
chopping
the
air
as
he
poured
into Boutwell's
receptive
ears a tale
rife
with alarums
and
horrible
imaginings.
The
Secretary, according
to Boutwell's Reminis-
cences,
said that the
President
had issued
orders
to
the
Army
of
which
neither
he nor General
[of
the
Army]
Grant had
any knowledge.
He apprehended
an attempt
by
the
President
to
reorganize
the govern-
ment
by
the
assembling
of
a Congress
in
which
mem-
bers
of
the
seceding states and Democratic
members
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from
the North
might
obtain control through the aid
of the
Executive. Boutwell
agreed
witii Stanton
that
the President's
powers must be
limited. Then and
there,
under
Stanton's dictation,
he
drafted a
measure
making
it
a
misdemeanor
for the
President
to trans-
mit
orders
to any officer of the
army
except
through
the
General
of the Army.
Added
to
this
were
other
provisions
forbidding the
President
to
remove the
General
of
the
Army—
or,
for
that
matter,
even
to
as-
sign
him to
duty
outside
the
capital—
without the
ad-
vice
and consent
of the
Senate.
This flagrant
attempt to strip
Johnson
of his
pre-
rogatives
as Commander in
Chief
was attached to the
Army Appropriation Bill
of
1867.
Rather than
leave
the
military
without
funds, the President
signed it,
taking care in his return
message
to note
that
the
rider
attacking
his powers
was
unconstitutional.
The conspiratorial mood of
Congress
was
further
expressed
by
the passage of other
bills, including
the
Tenure of
Office
Act,
aimed at
clipping
the
President's
wings.
In
the
House,
Stevens
was
describing
the
legis-
lature
as
the sovereign
power of the
country
and
thundering that
though the
President is
Commander-
in-chief,
Congress
is his
commander,
and God
willing,
he
shall obey
In the
Senate,
slender and
dignified
John
Sherman,
brother
of
the
Civil War
general,
while
demurring
at
the
Tenure
of
Office Act,
was supporting
the rest of
the
Radical program with
a zeal
typical of
other
erst-
while
moderates who
had
seen
the
light and
reformed
The
executive
department
of
a
republic like
ours,'
Senator
Sherman
would
write
later, in
summation
should
be
subordinate
to
the
legislative
department
The
President should obey
and
enforce
the laws, leav
ing to
the people
the
duty
of
correcting any errors
committed
by
their
representatives
in Congress.
Nor
was Congress
content
to
chip
away
at
the pow-
ers
of the
Executive. It
applied its
chisel
also to the
foundations
of
the
Supreme
Court.
In
the
first
of
the
four acts
embodying the
congressional
plan
of
Recon-
struction, the
judiciary—
both
federal
and
local—was
made subsidiary to the
military
in
ten
Southern states;
and
by the
Habeas Corpus
Act
of
1867,
state courts
were
forbidden to issue writs of habeas corpus
except
under
certain
circumstances.
Four
other
acts
were
aimed
at the
Supreme Court, and
while
not
all of
them
passed,
together
they constituted
a
threat
to
which
the Court
reacted
as desired: in
at least two
cases
involving defiant
Southern editors,
the
justices
took
refuge
in
technicalities
to
avoid
decisions that
might
have
overturned
the bayonet-carpetbag-scala-
wag
rule that
Congress had
imposed
upon
the
South.
The mood of
the
Reconstruction
Congicss
has not
gone
unobserved
on
the part of
twentieth-century
commentators.
Roscoe
Pound
and
Charles
H.
Mcll-
wain
have
detected
in its
attitudes
similarities
to those
of the
British
Rump
Parliament,
which
in
1649
sent
Charles
I to
the
scaffold
and
proclaimed
the Com-
monwealth
a
unitary
state with
the supreme
power
vested
in the
Parliament
of
this
nation.
The
British
political
scientist
Harold
J.
Laski
has found the
ac-
tions
of
the post-bellum
Senate
inexplicable
except
upon
the
assumption
that
it
was determined
to
make
the
President no
more
than
its
creature.
An
even
more pointed observation
comes from
another
British
student of American
government,
D.
VV. Brogan.
Not-
Harper's
Weekly,
APRIL
ii, 1868
On
March
30
members
of
the
House,
led
by
Stevens
with
his
cane, arrived
at the Senate
chamber
for
the trial's opening.
ing
that
if
Johnson
had
been
removed,
his
successor
under the Constitution
would
have
been Ben Wade,
the
pro-Radical
president pro
tem
of
the Senate, Bro-
gan
poses
the
question.
Had
the impeachment
succeeded,
he
writes,
had
Congress
tasted
blood
by
putting
one of
its
own
. . .
into
the
White House,
who
can
say
what
would
have
happened
to the
presidential
office?
It
is now
pretty
widely
agreed
that,
as
a
matter
of fact.
Congress
had no
such
chance. When the trial opened
on
March
30,
1868,
many senators—
and
the
people
of
the
North
in
general—
sincerely
believed
that
Johnson
merited
removal
on
constitutional
groimds.
But
in
the
course
of
almost
two months
of
testimony-taking
and a
hundred
hours of
fervid
argumentation,
the
pendulum
swung
in
the other
direction.
The
fact
that Johnson
was
acquitted
by
only one
vote
imparted breathless
drama
to the
closing
hours of
the trial on
May 26,
but
it
cannot be
taken
as a meas-
ure of
prevailing
sentiment at
the time.
Three months
later,
in a letter to
an
intimate,
Johnson
was contend-
ing that
the
vote
was
not so
close
as most
people
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think.
The
President revealed
that
rather than to
have
seen
Ben \Vade succeed
to
the
presidential
chair,
Senator
Edwin
D.
Morgan
of New York, who voted
Guilty, would have
changed
his vote
if on the
two
final roll calls
the
President
could
have
been
saved from
conviction
by
his
doing
so.
Two
other
Republican sen-
ators,
William Sprague of Rhode
Island and Waitman
Thomas Willey
of
West
Virginia, bent
to the
party
lash
and
also
voted
Guilty, but
both
let it be
understood
prior
to the
roll
calls
that they
too
would change
their
votes
if their voices
were needed.
Apparently
all
of the
seven
Republicans who
broke
with
their
party
to
save the day
for
the President
were
aware
of the
impact of
their
decision
on
the
structure
of
government.
Edmund
G.
Ross of
Kansas, who
cast
the
deciding vote, believed that
to
have convicted
Johnson
upon insufficient
proofs
and
from
partisan
considerations . . .
would practically
have
revolution-
ized our splendid
political fabric
into a partisan
con-
gressional autocracy.
During
the
summer
of 1868
Fessenden,
perhaps
the
clearest thinker
among
those
Republicans
who
had supported
Johnson,
was writing
that
to
remove
a
President
of
the United States
for
merely political reasons
would
be to
shake the
faith
of the
friends of
constitutional
liberty in
the
perma-
nency
of our
free
institutions.
. .
.
Within
weeks
after
the
conclusion of
the
trial,
a
decided
reaction
was
noticeable
on the
part
of
the
public—
an
inchoate
but
growing realization
that in
the
acquittal
of
Johnson
the
country
had
escaped
dangers
far greater than any
that its
willful,
even
if
right-minded. President could
conceivably
generate.
The
American of today, living
in an age quite dif-
ferent
from
that
of 1868,
can
be
excused for
wondering
whether
the
acquittal was
a
danger avoided,
as
the
people
of that time believed;
or
whether,
on
the con-
trary,
it
was
an
opportunity
missed.
Would
the
United
States
be
better
able
to
cope with
its
present
problems
if
Johnson
had been
convicted and
the
central
govern-
ment shifted
from a federal
to
a
parliamentary
base?
A
considerable
literature
has
addressed itself
to
this
question.
Many critics of a federalist
government
of
separated
powers,
of
checks
and
balances,
point
out
that
it
is
also
a
government
of
delays and
deadlocks.
Thoughtful
men—Laski
among
them—
have
foreseen
the
day
when
these
characteristics
may
prove
fatal to
the
American
government
when it
must
meet
and
solve
the
swiftly
arising
crises of
our
own
era. Another
ob-
jection frequently
voiced is that
the
federal
system
tends
to block needed social reforms
and in
effect
thwart
the
will
of
the people.
While
such
criticisms
have
been
coming thicker
and
faster
in
recent
years, there is
nothing new about
them.
Doubts
concerning
the
workability
of
the
American
form
of
government
were in
the
air
while
the
govern-
ment
itself
was
still
an embryo.
In
the
course
of
the
federal
convention
during
the
summer of
1787
Roger
Sherman
of Connecticut
advocated
a constitution
that
would
make
the
legislature
the
depository
of
the
su-
preme
will
of
the
society. And
at that same memora-
ble
meeting
in
Philadelphia
Alexander Hamilton de-
clared
that
the British
government was
the
best in
the
world:
and
that
he
doubted
much
whether any
thing
short
of it would
do
in America.
Since
the
days when
the
thirteen
colonies,
each
so
jealous
of
its
sovereignty,
got together
to fight
the
lob-
sterbacks,
the
American
people
have
exhibited
a
tendency—
a
genius—
to
maintain
widely
divergent
viewpoints
in normal times,
but to
unite
and agree in
times
of stress.
One
reason
the
federal system has
sur-
vived
is that
it has
demonstrated
this
same
tendency.
Most
of
the time the three
co-equal
divisions
of
the
general
government
tend
to compete.
In crises they
tend
to co-operate.
And
not
only during
a war. A
sin-
gular
instance
of co-operation took
place
in
the open-
ing
days of
the
first administration
of
Franklin
D.
Roosevelt,
when
the
harmonious efforts of Executive
and legislature
to
arrest
the
ravages
of
depression
brought
the
term rubber-stamp
Congress into the
headlines.
On
the
other hand, when in
1937
Roosevelt
attempted
to
bend
the
judiciary
to
the
will of
the
executive
by
packing
the
Supreme Court, Congress
rebelled. This
frequently
proved flexibility—
this
ca-
pacity
of both
people
and government to
shift
from
competition
to
co-operation and back
again as
cir-
cumstances warrant—
suggests
that
the
federal
system
will
be found equal to
the
very
real
dangers of the
present world situation.
In
the
Congress
of 1868,
one
of
the
charges
against
Andrew
Johnson—
a
charge subsequently softened
by
historians—was
that
his actions
were
directed
by
a
boundless
egotism.
That
they were
not
is
indicated
by the
fact
that
never for one
moment did he
look
upon
the
impeachment proceedings
solely as an
attack
on him
personally.
As
he made
clear
in
numerous
statements,
he
realized that
he
was
not
standing
alone
at
the
bar
of
the
United States Senate. Standing beside
him,
faint
shades
in
the
sparkle
of
the
chandeliers,
were
Washington
and
Madison,
Franklin
and
Ran-
dolph,
and all of
the
other devoutly remembered ar-
chitects
of
our
federal
system of
government.
Milton
Lomask
of
Weston,
Connecticut,
autlior
of
a
score
of
juvenile
biographies
and
novels,
is an instructor in
the
]Vriting
Center
at
New York
University.
He has
recently
completed Andrew
Johnson:
President on Trial,
to
be
published next year by
Farrar, Straus and
Cudahy.
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READING,
WRITING, AND
HISTORY
By BRUCE CATTON
What
War Destroys
If
the study
of military history teaches anything
worth
knowing,
its
principal
lesson is that
modern
war
never means what
the people
who
are fighting it
thought that
it was
going
to
mean. This is
not
merely
because
it
involves
infinite physical
destruction,
but
because it turns
loose social
forces
that get completely
out
of
hand.
It brings
results
that
were
neither
fore-
seen
nor
desired.
It
means
profound
change.
For
war disrupts the ground
on
which people
were
standing
when they
took
up
arms.
It erases
the
status
r/uo—which one side
or
the other, if not
both,
believes
itself to be
fighting
to preserve. The very
process of
fighting creates the certainty that nothing is ever
go-
ing to
be
the
same
again.
This bears with
especial
weight
on
the
military
men
themselves,
for
they are the men whose
routine de-
cisions bring
about
these changes.
Their
profession
compels
them
to strive for
immediate, tangible
results,
and the
profound
intangibles
that
will
grow
out
of the
things they
do
when
they
try to
gain
those
results
are
likely
to
be
invisible
to
them.
By
their
training, they
tend to
be
the
most
conservative
of
living mortals; in
wartime, without in the
least realizing
it, they
are apt
to become the
world's
most
ruthless
radicals.
All
of this
is
brought to mind
by
a
reading
of Cyril
Falls's meaty
book,
The Great
War. Mr. Falls,
a
Brit-
ish
military
critic,
undertakes
to
examine
the general-
ship
of
the leading
soldiers in
the
First
World
War,
and his
book
can be
taken as
a
classic case history
of
the way in
which
professional
soldiers
of
high
compe-
tence, striving
earnestly
to do one thing,
managed
in
the
end
to
do something
everlastingly different.
More than any
other war that readily comes to
mind,
the
First World
War was under the firm control
of
the
soldiers themselves.
From the
moment
the
ulti-
matums were
exchanged
in
August of
1914,
the civil-
ian
powers
all across Europe
turned everything over
to
the
generals.
To a
very
large extent,
the generals
The
Great
War,
1914-1918,
by
Cyril
Falls.
G.
P.
Putnam's
Sons.
447
pp. $5.95.
acted as
they
saw fit,
with
a
minimum of
interference
by emperor, king,
prime
minister, or
parliament. Here
was
a
soldiers'
fight.
How
did
the
soldiers do?
Mr. Falls,
taking the narrowest
of
purely
military
viewpoints,
considers that a good
many
of them
did
very well
indeed.
The
two
great captains of
1918,
he
believes,
were
the
French Foch and
the British
Haig.
They
had military
skill, great
qualities
of
leadership,
indomitable
will power:
Both
were men of
imcon-
querable
souls.
Ranking
closely
behind
them
he
puts
the
German
Ludendorif,
although
he
confesses that
Ludendorff
was
without their
virtues
of character.
foffre
receives better
marks
than
he
is
often
given,
and
the
Austrian
Conrad von
Hotzendorf
similarly
gets a
high
rating.
The
Russian Brusilov
comes
in for praise,
as does Prussia's
Falkenhayn; and not
many British
writers
have
been as warm to
the
American Pershing
as
is
Mr. Falls.
In
substantial
detail, Mr.
Falls
studies
the battles
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and
the
campaigns in which these and other generals
played
their
parts. He is dealing,
of
course,
with
a
scene that
is
a little too big for any single book.
The
First
World
War was
a
stupendous, sprawling
convul-
sion,
and
to
describe
it
in
fewer than
five
hundred
pages
calls for more compression
than the traffic
ought
to
be
asked to
bear.
Nevertheless, within
limits,
this
book
does
what it
tries
to do;
it
offers
a solid,
thought-
ful,
informed analysis of
the
war in strictly profes-
sional
terms.
And
the
only
trouble
is that
those terms are
alto-
gether
too
narrow. As
technicians,
the great
generals
of
the First World
War may indeed
have been
very
able
men, serving
to the best of their
considerable
abilities the countries
that
had trained them,
and
the
breakthroughs,
the
stirring
defenses, the encirclements
and
so
on,
which they
achieved
at
various
times, will
no doubt
be
studied
in
the
textbooks for
years
to come.
But
what
finally came of all of this?
What came of it was
something the
governments
that employed these gieat
soldiers
would
have run
from, screaming, if
they could
have seen it in
advance.
For
what these governments
really
wanted
out
of
the
First World
War
was
the
continued
existence
of
a
so-
ciety
that
had
room
for a
Russian
empire, an Austro-
Hungarian
empire,
a
German
empire,
a
British
empire,
a
France
trailing the
memories of
the
Little
Corporal,
and so
on:
a
stable
society,
in which rival empires
might indeed
gain this or that
advantage,
but which
preserved
the
old
order
and permitted
no room
for
any
substantial change. And what they
got
was
the
end
of
everything
they had lived
by.
These
empires were, as
Mr. Falls
insists, ably served
by
their
military
servants.
But
look
at
what
hap-
pened.
The
Austro-Hungarian empire
vanished
in
thin
smoke,
literally
obliterated,
its bits
and
pieces
surviving
quite separately—
more
happily, perhaps,
than
they
were
before,
but
not
seeking
and getting
that
happiness
in
any
way
which a
servant
of
the
em-
pire
could
have
countenanced.
The
Russian
empire-
well,
no
comment that
could
be made here
would do
justice
to
the
upheaval that came about.
The German
empire broke, passed
into
the hideous
tetanic
spasm
that
brought
about
Hitler and
a
second war,
and
ex-
ists today in
divided fragments
which
disturb
the
peace
of
all
mankind
by
their
separate
existence.
Italy
got
Mussolini,
humiliation,
and an
existence
as
a
va-
cation spot.
France fell
into
the
position
of
a
second-
class
power,
alive
today
by
sufferance
and the
aid
of
many
non-Frenchmen.
And the
British
empire,
which
Sir
Douglas
Haig
fought
so
hard
to maintain?
Sir
Douglas
assuredly would not
recognize
it,
and
would
not want to
recognize it, as it
is
today.
In plain
language,
these
professional
soldiers,
trained
to the hilt and
given
their
heads, managed
to bring
on
wholesale
revolution, overturn,
and
permanent
change
more rapidly
and decisively
than anything
that could
have been accomplished
by what
they
believed
they
were
fighting
against.
They
won battles
and campaigns
and
lost everything
they
were
fighting for. In
his own
way,
each man was
trying
to preserve
what we can now
call
the
pre-
1914
way of
life,
and
precisely because
they
fought
so
long
and
so hard they made
the pre-1914
way of
life
one
with
the
dodo
and
the great
auk.
Great
technicians
these men may
have
been;
great
captains they
assuredly were
not.
They
could
see noth-
ing
but
victory,
and they
were
willing
to
buy victory
at
the
most inconceivable
price.
They made unendur-
ably
excessive
demands
on
their
people;
they
tried
to
buy
military
triumph at
prices
that left
all
of
Europe
bankrupt.
Knowing all
that could
be known about
the
military
arts, they
knew
nothing
whatever
about
the
human
societies
that had
to pay for
the
exercise of
those
arts.
They
gave
mankind
a
Somme and
a
Ver-
dun, a
Masurian
Lakes, a
Passchendaele,
and
a
Capo-
retto—
and looking
back
at this
distance we can
only
say
that something
essential
had
been left
out
of
their
training. Never were learned men
so
ignorant.
It appears that once or
twice the generals
themselves
sensed
this.
Falkenhayn apparently wanted
the
war to
end
in
a
good peace,
and he dimly
felt,
as Mr. Falls
remarks,
that
this
would involve
a correct
calculation
of
the
extent of
the victory needed
to
obtain
it.
But
this was beyond
most of
them.
Thinking
only of vic-
tory, they could
not
think
of what victory
might
cost.
So
the
war
went
on and on,
destroying
lives,
the accu-
mulated
riches
of the past, habits
of
thought,
social
organizations—
and
in
the
end
the
soldiers,
who
imag-
ined
that they
were
defending
the established order,
fought
mankind's way into
a
situation
where
a new
order
had
to
be
built from scratch.
Today's
world
contains
many
frightening
things;
among
them, a
superweapon
whose mere existence
gives all
of us
a
bad case of
nerves. But
it
may
be
that
a
much
more
frightening
thing
than
the
weapon
it-
self is
the
narrow professional who looks only at
the
weapon
and
who
has never
been taught
to
think
about
what
may
happen after
the weapon
has
been
used.
Excess
of
Caution
Yet
this
is
where
the
shoe
really pinches.
The
pro-
fessional soldier,
probably
of
necessity, spends
his
life
learning how
to
beat an
enemy to
his
knees, and
he
does his best to
learn
this by
studying the
ways
in
which
the last
enemies
were
beaten.
Then
the
world
moves
out
from
under him,
and
his
body
of knowledge
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becomes
a
hindrance
rather
than a
help—
and,
once
again,
history
turns a corner.
A French
military
historian,
Colonel
A. Goutard,
examines this
problem in The
Battle
of
France,
1940,
and
the
book
makes a good
companion piece
to
the
study
written
by
Mr.
Falls.
Colonel
Goutard
says
bluntly
that the
soldiers of
France—
a
nation
whose
army
had
a
military
tradition
as
good
as any in
Europe
—had
learned
from
World
War
I
nothing
except
a
few
outmoded
lessons
in
tactics,
and that
France
lost
its
part
of the
Second
World
War
as a
direct
result.
The
French,
Colonel
Goutard suggests,
missed
the
boat
several times:
specifically,
right
at first,
by
con-
senting to
the inactive
phase
of the
phoney
war,
from
the
moment war
was
declared
in
the
fall
of
1939
to the
outbreak of
the
German
offensive
in
the
following
May.
Germany was
vulnerable
then,
he
insists, and
a
The
Battle
of
France,
1940,
by
Colonel
A.
Goutard,
with a
foreword by
Captain
B.
H.
Liddell
Hart.
Ives
Washburn,
Inc.
280
pp.
$4.
sharp
French
offensive
might
have settled
things
in
short order. He
quotes
German
generals as
confessing,
much
later,
that
a
French
drive
in
the
fall
of
1939
could
have
crossed the
Rhine and
occupied the
Ruhr;
after
which,
as
the
Reich's
General
Westphal
ad-
mitted,
the
whole face
of
Europe
would
have been
changed.
But this
was
the
last
thing
French
military thought
could
contemplate.
The
French
Army was
put on
the
defensive,
not
because
it
was
unprepared, not
because
the
government
had
not given
it
proper
equipment
and
training,
but because
the
wrong
lessons
had been
learned
from
the
earlier
experience.
The
overriding
principle
was to sit
tight, to
play for time, to
wait un-
til
this, that,
or
the
other circumstance
would make
a
real
show of force
advisable.
Unfortunately,
the
Germans refused
to play
it
that
way.
Colonel
Goutard is
blunt
about
it: Our
defeat
in
May
1940
was
achieved by
tactical and
strategic sur-
prise
against our
High
Command.
The
tactical
sur-
prise
was
because
our
ideas were
inherited
from
1918,
as
against the
German lightning
war.
The
Germans
had
learned
something—
one
lesson
(its
sharp
edge
pres-
ently to
be
blunted)
being
that a
modern
war,
what-
ever
else it
does,
had
better
be
short
if the
people who
have
made it
hope
to get
what
they
want.
They
hit
hard and
suddenly,
they
tossed
the
supposed
tactical
teachings
of
1918
out
the
window,
and
they knocked
France out of the
war.
And this.
Colonel Goutard
in-
sists, was
not
because
France was
overmatched.
Once
the
German
offensive began, there
were
plenty
of
op-
portunities
to
restore
the
balance.
The
will to take
advantage
of
the opportunities
was
lacking.
The
French generals
did not
fight ;
and
although
invit-
ing chances for counterattack were
offered, in actual
fact
no
one really
wanted to
counterattack.
The
French defeat,
of
course, was a
complicated
business. In
part
it
came
out
of
political
mistakes
made
during Hitler's
rise
to
power,
out
of
general
confusion
among the soldiers regarding
what
the
government
really
wanted, out
of
tactical
blunders
in
the
field, out
of
the decision
to
surrender
rather than
to
carry
on
the
war
from
North Africa. But in the
main Colonel
Goutard's
verdict holds: Fundamentally,
.
. . our
defeat was due more to our
conservatism of outlook
and our
unrealistic
and preconceived ideas
than
to
any
military weakness inherent in our nation.
The
soldiers,
in other words, to
whom
much had
been given
and
of
whom
much was
expected, had
learned
their
lessons
wrong.
In
the
olden days this
might not
have
mattered
so
much. In the
modern
world,
where incalculable things
hang on
the
outcome
of
a
war,
it
mattered
beyond
reckoning.
Consider
what these French generals were carrying
on
their
shoulders in the
fall of
1939
and the first six
months
of
1940.
Just
about everything that
has hap-
pened
in the world
since then would
have
happened
very differently
if
they had
learned
to
understand
something
more about
war
than
the
mere
technique
of
waging it.
(That they
learned
that
technique wrong
was an
additional
error
which compounded the
effect
of the
basic error.)
Understanding nothing but
the
business of
fighting,
they
played the military
game
in
a
vacuum.
Strategy, as
Colonel
Goutard
truly says,
parted
company
with
common
sense,
and
the
result
was
unrelieved disaster.
Generations ago
the
professional
soldier needed
to
know
nothing but
the
intricacies
of his
own
profession.
Wars
were limited,
once;
the
soldier
used
the means
that
had been
given
him,
did the
best he could
with
them, and
in
ordinary
circimistances his
country
could
live with
the result. It is
not
like
that
any longer—has
not
been
like it,
indeed, for a
century
and
more;
and
simply because
nations today
fight
wars with
the ut-
most
intensity
of
which they
are
capable,
the
soldier's
responsibility
once
war
begins
has
a
weight of terrify-
ing
proportions.
All-out
war
is
revolutionary war,
even
though
no
one
means it
that
way.
When we
begin
a
war
we
invite
the
future to
change.
T/ie
Great
Incalculable
Perhaps
it
is
the
intensity
of
the
fight that makes the
difference.
Everything
that
a
nation has is
put into
the
struggle.
New
powers
are
developed,
new forces
are
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let loose,
new
capacities are
discovered
and exploited,
and
these
have
a
permanent
effect.
Beyond either
vic-
tory
or
defeat
they
go on
working; it becomes
impos-
sible
for
the
warring
nation
to go
back to
its
prewar
status simply
because
the
effort of fighting
the
war
has
destroyed that status
forever.
The classic
example
of this
is,
of course, that
hardy
perennial
of
the
modern
book lists, the American
Civil
War,
and Allan Nevins examines
the
process in an
excellent
new
book.
The
War
for
the
Union.
He sub-
titles
his book The Improvised War, and
he
is
chiefly
concerned
here
with
how the
improvisation
took
place
and what it finally
led
to.
If
ever
two peoples were unprepared
for
war,
the
peoples
of
the
North and
the
South
were
unprepared
in
1861.
They
had to
make
the
war up
as
they
went
along,
and
in
the
end
almost
nothing
that
happened
came because
anybody
had really
planned
for it.
The
first
year of
the
war
is
a
long
record of
mistakes. Prob-
lems of
finance
and equipment had to be solved
catch-
as-catch-can;
armies
had
to
be
whistled into existence
according
to
the
obsolete
military
tradition of
the
time,
which
meant
that in
matters
of
discipline and
training
they
were
almost
entirely
out
from under cen-
tral control; generals
had to be
created
out of any
material
that
came to hand, and strategic planning
The
War for
the
Union:
The
Improvised War,
1861-1862,
by
Allan Nevins. Charles Scribner's
Sons.
436
pp.
$7.50.
(where
it
existed
at
all)
was
a
singular
blend of politi-
cal considerations
and dimly
understood
military
prin-
ciples,
carried
out
by
officers
who
in
many
cases tried
their
best to be
virtually
independent
of
the
national
government.
The record of the first
year,
accordingly, is
appar-
ently indecisive.
In
the
East,
the
Union
government
suffered
the disgraceful
setback of
Bull
Run; in
the
West, it had
the
equally
humiliating
setback
of
Wil-
son's Creek. Only in West
Virginia,
in Kentucky,
and
at isolated
spots
along
the
Atlantic seacoast
did
the
national government
record any
definite
advances, and
these
seemed to be
peripheral
matters that might easily
have
been
canceled
out
by
more extensive
reverses
later
on.
Yet
it
is
clear
that
an
immense
job was
done. More
than
500,000
men were
brought
under arms, a
new
fleet
was
created,
the industrial mechanism
to
support
an
all-out
war
effort
was
slowly
brought
into being,
and
the
amorphous
enthusiasm for
restoring
the
Union
was
somehow hardened,
by
slow
degrees,
into
the
grim determination
that
would
finally insist
on
driving
ahead to
all-out
victory
at any
cost.
And
amid
all
of this,
the shape
that
the
war would
finally take
was
determined.
For
what
was taking
place
was
in fact
a
genuine
revolutionary effort.
Never
before had
the
American
people
made
such a
tremendous effort of organization
and preparation;
and,
as Mr. Nevins remarks,
No
government,
after such
an
effort,
could
ever
sink
back
to the
old
level
of
small
enterprises pettily pursued.
Behind the
drilling
troops and scurrying
ships
new
industries
were
taking form,
new
factories were
belch-
ing
smoke, banks,
stores,
and warehouses were being
enlarged
to
seize
new opportunities, and the
wheels
of
transport
were turning with
new
speed.
The
very
at-
tempt that was
being
made
to
fight
the
war
on the re-
quired scale
was making
a
permanent
change
in
the
country. Nothing
would ever
be the same again,
be-
cause
a whole new order
was
coming into existence.
Mr. Nevins
sums
up
the situation
succinctly:
Had
some
miracle of
compromise
ended
the
war
in
the
summer
of 1861,
the country
would
have
emerged
with but
minor
changes
in non-political fields. Bull
Run
had
made it
certain
that a
considerable socio-economic revolution would
occur. If the
mighty military
effort
planned
for
1862
suc-
ceeded, it would
be merely considerable.
But if it
failed,
and the
conflict continued,
the
country
would
face
a
major
revolution, altering
many
of the organic functions of society.
The effort did fail,
of
course, and the major revolu-
tion did
take place.
And
it is
a
melancholy
and
in-
structive fact
that
the
responsible
leaders
on both
sides
wanted nothing of
the
kind to take place. The Amer-
ica
of i860 was
a
happy land, a loose-jointed and
in-
formal sort of place in
which,
barring the
thorny
slavery-States'
rights
dispute,
there
were
no
great
prob-
lems
and
no
great
pressures.
North and
South
alike,
men believed that they were fighting
to
restore that
happy
situation.
Fighting
to restore it,
they
ended
it
forever.
Modern
war
can make its
long-range effects felt
in
several ways.
As
Mr.
Falls
has indicated
in his book
on
the
First World
War,
the sheer destructiveness
of
the
fighting
can
destroy the
things
men believe they
are
trying
to preserve.
Yet
the
generals of
France
in
1940,
instinctively
drawing
away from
the
fearful
de-
structiveness
of the
earlier
conflict, ruined
their
coun-
try
by an excess
of cautious
conservatism. And
in
our
own
case
we
can
see
how
the
mere
task of
harnessing
all
of
a
country's
energies for war
can set
in motion
forces
that
take
men
in
directions
they
had no inten-
tion
of
traveling.
Modern war,
apparently,
is
the great
incalculable.
It
can be
controlled
only
to the most
limited
degree.
Won or lost, it
means profound
change; change,
usu-
ally, that
never
entered
into
the
calculations of
the
men
who
started
it.
116
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The
Pepys
of
the
Old
Dominion
CONTINUED
FROM
PACE
7
ary 21,
1722.
For
honesty
and
perception,
and
for
the
balance
that
the
eighteenth
century
enthroned,
it
has
few
American
counterparts.
Poor
Inamorato
[as
Byrd
calls
himself]
had too
much
mer-
cury
to
fix
to
one
thing.
His
Brain
was too
hot
to
jogg
on
eternally
in
the
same
dull
road.
He
liv'd
more
by
the
lively
moment
of
his
Passions,
than by
the
cold
and
unromantick
dictates of
Reason
...
He
pay'd
his
Court
more to
obscure
merit,
than
to
corrupt
Greatness.
He
never
cou'd
flatter
any
body,
no not
himself,
which
were
two
invincible
bars
to
all
preferment.
. .
.
His
religion
is
more
in
substance
than
in
form,
and he
is
more
forward
to
practice
vertue than
profess
it
... He
knows
the
World
perfectly
well,
and
thinks
him-
self
a
citizen
of
it
without
the
. . .
distinctions
of
kindred
sect
or
Country.
He
goes on
to
explain
why,
for
most
of
his
life, he
began
his
day
by
reading
ancient
classics,
and
frowned
upon
morning
interruptions:
A
constant
hurry
of
visits fc
conversations
gives
a
man a
habit
of
inadvertency,
which
betrays
him
into
faults
without
measure
&
without end.
For
this
reason,
he
commonly
re-
serv'd
the
morning
to
himself,
and
bestow'd
the
rest
upon
his
business
and
his
friends.
The
reason
for
his
own
candor is
clearly
stated:
He
Lov'd
to
undress
wickedness
of all
its
paint,
and
dis-
guise,
that he
might
loath
its
deformity.
The
extent
of
his
philosophizing
and
his
admitted
heresy
is
made
clear
by
this
remarkable
passage:
He
wishes
every
body
so
per-
fect,
that
he
overlooks
the
im-
possibility
of
reaching
it
in
this
World.
He
wou'd
have
men
Angells
before
their
time,
and
wou'd
bring
down
that
perfection
upon
Earth
which
is
the
peculiar
priviledge
of
Heaven.
Byrd left
us
a
scattered
and
largely
unavailable
body
of
literature—
t;er5
de
societe,
historical
essays,
character
sketches,
epi-
taphs,
letters,
poems,
trans-
lations,
and
humorous
sat-
ires.
Of
this
work
Maude
Woodfin, one
of
the
few
scholars
to
delve
adequately
into
Byrd's
work,
wrote:
William
fSyrd's
con
motto
means,
No
g
There is
a
distinctly
American
quality
in
these
writings
of
the latter
half of
Byrd's
life, in
direct
con-
trast
to
the
exclusively
English
quality
in
the
writ-
ings of
his earlier
years.
Further
study
and
time
will
doubtless
argue
that
his literary
work
in
the
Virginia
period
from
1726
on,
with
its
colonial scene
and
theme,
has
greater
literary
merit than
his
work in the
London
period.
Byrd
has
a
place
in
our
architectural
history as
well.
His
manor
house,
Westover, is in
many
ways
the
finest
Georgian
mansion in
the
nation.
Triumphant
architec-
tural
solutions
never
come
quickly or
easily:
only
fust-
rate
minds
can
conjure up
first-rate
houses.
In
the
spring
of
1709,
we
know
from
Byrd's
diary,
he
had
workmen
constructing
brick.
Five
years
later,
stone-
cutters
from
Williamsburg
were
erecting
the
library
chimney.
There
were
interruptions,
delays,
faulty
ship-
ments,
workmen
to
be
trained.
But
gradually
a
master-
piece—noble
in
symmetry,
proportion,
and
balance-
emerged.
Built
on
a
little
rise a
hundred
yards
from
the
James
River,
Westover
has
not
changed
much
over
the
gen-
erations.
The
north and
south
facades
are as
solid and
rhythmical as a
well-wrought
fugue,
and
the
beauti-
ful
doorways
would
have
pleased
Palladio
himself.
Al-
though
the
manor
is
derived
from
English
standards
(especially
William
Salmon's
Palladio
Londinensis),
Westover
makes
such
superb
use
of the
local
materials
and
landscape
that
some
European
critics
have ad-
judged
it
esthetically
more
satisfying
than most
of
the
contemporary
homes
in
England.
Like
other
buildings
of
the
period,
Westover
was
planned
from
the
outside
in.
The
main
hallway,
eighteen
feet
wide
and
off
center,
goes
the
full
length
of
the
house.
The
stairway
has
three
runs
and a
balus-
trade
of richly
turned
ma-
hogany.
The
handsomely
paneled
walls
of
the
down-
stairs
rooms
support
gilded
ceilings.
Underneath
the
house
is
a
complete
series
of
rooms,
converging
at the
subterranean
passage
lead-
t
of
arms.
The
Latin
ing
to
the
river.
Two
un-
uiU
to
make
one
pale.
derground
chambers,
which
117
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This
/702
drawing
shows
five
buildings in
Wil-
liamsburg,
colonial Virginia's
capital:
(A\ the
New
Council
House;
(B) a merchant's
house;
(C)
the
ground
plan
of
the Statehouse,
where William
Byrd
often
sat in
the
House
of
Burgesses;
(D)
a
farmer's home;
and
(E) the
Bruton
Parish
Church.
could
be used
as
hiding places, are reached
through
a
dry
well. Since
he
liked nothing
less
than
the
idea of
being
dry,
William
Byrd
kept
both chambers
stocked
with claret
and
Madeira.
Westover
takes
its
place
in
the
succession
of remark-
able Virginia
manors
that
remain one
of
the
glories of
the
American
past.
It
was
completed
probably by
1736,
after Stratford
Hall, with
its
masculine vigor,
and
Rosewell,
with
its
mahogany
balustrade
from San Do-
mingo.
Westover
would
be followed
by Brandon,
with
chaste cornices
and
fine
simplicity;
Gunston
Hall, with
cut-stone
quoins
and
coziness;
Sabine
Hall,
so remi-
niscent
of
Horace's
villa
at
Tivoli;
and Pacatone,
with
its wonderful
entrance
and its legendary
ghosts.
These
places
were
more
than
houses.
They
were
little
worlds
in
themselves,
part of
a
universe
that
ex-
isted within the
boundaries of
Virginia.
The planters
lavished
their
energy
and their
lives
on
such
worlds.
They
were
proud
of
their crops, their horses, their
libraries,
their gardens. Byrd,
for
example,
tells
us
about
the iris, crocus, thyme,
marjoram,
phlox,
lark-
spur,
and
jasmine
in
his formal two-acre
garden.
At Westover one
might
find
the
Carters
from Shir-
ley,
the
Lees
from Stratford,
the
Harrisons
from
Ran-
dolph,
or
the
Spotswoods
from
Germanna.
So
might
one encounter Byrd's
brother-in-law,
that
ardent
wom-
an-hater,
John
Custis,
from Arlington.
Surely
the
ghost
of
William
Byrd
would
not
want
any
tale
of
Westover
to
omit
a
short
tribute
to
Custis'
irascible
memory.
While
other
founding
fathers
left
immortal
lines
about
life
and liberty
to
stir
our
blood,
Custis
left
words
to warm
henpecked
hearts.
With
his
highhanded
lady
he
got
on monstrous
poor.
After
one
argument
Custis
turned
and
drove
his
carriage
into
the
Chesapeake
Bay.
When
his
wife
asked
where
he was
going,
he
shouted,
To
Hell,
Madam.
Drive
on,
she said
imperiously.
Any
place
is
better
than
Arlington
So
that
he
might
have
the last
word,
Custis
composed
his
own
epitaph,
and
made
his
son
execute
it on
pain
of
being
disinherited:
Under
this
marble
tomb
lies
the
body
OF the
Hon.
JOHN
CUSTIS,
Esq.,
* *
* «
Age
7
1
YEARS,
AND
yet lived
but
seven
years,
WHICH
WAS
THE
SPACE
OF
TIME
HE
KEPT
A bachelor's
HOME
AT
ARLINGTON
ON
THE
Eastern
Shore
of Virginia.
$till
Custis
came
to
Westover,
like
all
others
who
could,
to
enjoy
the
fairs,
balls,
parlor
games,
barbecues
—but
above
all,
the
conversation.
One
should
not
conclude
that
entertaining
friends
was
the
main
occupation
of
William
Byrd.
As
soon
as
he
awoke
he
read
Latin,
Greek,
or
Hebrew
before
breakfast.
His
favorite
room
was
not
the
parlor
but
the
library,
in
which
were
collected
over
3,600
volumes
dealing
with
philosophy,
theology,
drama,
history,
law,
and
science.
Byrd's
own
writings
prove
his
intimate
knowledge
of the
great
thinkers
and
writers
of
the
past.
Of
those
works,
none
except
his
diary
is
as
interest-
ing
as his
History
of
the
Dividing
Line.
On his
fifty-
third
birthday,
in
1727,
Byrd
was
appointed
one
of
the
Virginia
commissioners
to
survey
the
disputed
Vir-
ginia-North
Carolina
boundary;
the
next
spring
saw
the
group
ready
to embark
on
their
task.
Byrd's
History,
which
proves
he
was
one
of
the
day's
ablest
masters
of
English
prose,
is
a
thing
of delight.
For
days
comedy
and
tragedy
alternated
for
supremacy.
Indians
stole
their
food.
Bad
weather
and
poor
luck
caused
Byrd
to
swear
like
a trooper
in
His
Majesty's
Guards.
To
mend
matters,
Byrd's
companions
arranged
a party
around
a
cheerful bowl,
and
invited
a country
bump-
kin
to
attend.
She
must
have
remembered
the
party
for
a long time:
.
. .
they
examined
all
her
hidden
Charms
and
play'd
a
great
many
gay
Pranks,
noted
Byrd,
who
seems
to
have
disapproved
of
the
whole
affair.
The poor
Damsel
was
disabled
from
making
any
resistance
by the
Lameness
of her
Hand.
Whenever
matters
got
too
bad,
the
party's
chaplain
rubbed
up
his
artistocratic
swamp-evaders
with
a
seasonable
sermon;
and we
must
adjudge
all the
hard-
118
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ships a
small
price
to pay
for the
History. This
was
followed
by A
Journey
to
Eden,
which
tells
of
Byrd's
trip to survey
twenty thousand
acres
of
bottom
land.
On
September ig,
1733,
Byrd
decided
to stake
out
two
large
cities:
one at Shacco's, to be
called
Richmond,
and
the
other
at
the
point
of
the
Appomattuck
River,
to
be
called Petersburg.
It
is
a
generally
accepted
belief
that
only
in
politics
did eighteenth-century
America reach
real
distinc-
tion. But
as
we look
more
closely
at our
colonial litera-
ture
and architecture, and apply our own
criteria
rather than
those
imposed
upon
us
by the
English, we
find
that
this may not
be
so.
How, for
example,
could
we
have underestimated
William
Byrd's importance
all
these
years? There are several
answers.
He
never pre-
tended
to be a
serious
writer (no
gentleman
of his time
and place
would), any
more than
Jefferson
would
have
set
himself
up as
a
professional
architect.
But at least
we
have
Jefferson's
magnificent
buildings to refute the
notion
that he
was
a
mere
dabbler, and
for
years
we
had
little
of
Byrd's
prose. Because
he did
call
a spade
a spade,
many
of
his
contemporaries,
and even
more
of
their descendants, have
not
wanted
his work
and
allusions made
public. Byrd
had been dead almost a
century
when
Edmund
Ruffin published
fragments of
his writings
in the
Virginia
Farmers' Register.
Only
in
our
own generation
have
the
diaries
been
deciphered:
not until
1941
did
a
major publisher
undertake
to
see
part
of
them
into print; not until
1958
did
we have
The
London Diary
(1717-21);
not even
now
can we
read
all that
Byrd left
for
us.
No
amount
of reappraisal
can
turn
Byrd
into
a
fig-
ure of the
highest
magnitude.
What
it
might
do
is
to
reveal
a
man who for candor,
self-analysis,
and wit
is
unsurpassed—
this in
an age that
produced
Washington,
Adams,
Franklin,
Henry, and
Jefferson.
Could
any
other
colonial
American, for
example, have
written
such
a
delightful
and
ribald satire
on women
as The
Female
Creed,
which
has an
eighteenth-century
lady
profess:
I
believe in
astrologers,
coffee-casters,
and
Fortune-tellers
of every
denomination,
whether
they
profess
to read
the Ladys
destiny in their
faces, in
their
palms
or like
those
of China
in their
fair posteriors.
Nor
will
one often
encounter
in
a
colonial
writer
the
desire
to
exhume
his
father's
corpse,
and
then
to
report:
He
^vas
so wasted
there
was
not
one
thing to
be
distinguished.
I
ate fish
for
dinner.
When
William
Byrd
II
died
in the
summer
of
1744,
the pre-Revolutionary
ethos
and
attitudes
were dying
too.
They
have
not
attracted
historians
and
novelists
as have the
earlier
adventurous
days of
settlement
or
the
later
days
that tried
men's souls.
The period from
1700
to
1750
remains
the forgotten one
in
American
history
and literature,
despite
much
excellent but
rather
specialized
work
in it since
1930.
When
we know
more
of
that
important
and colorful
half
century, William
Byrd's
reputation
will
rise.
In
him we
shall
find
the
most
complete expression
of a
man
who
lived with
us
but
belongs
to
the
world.
In
his
work we shall
see, more
clearly
than
in that
of
his con-
temporaries,
the
emerging
differences
between
England
and the
American
colonies destined
to
grow
into their
own nationhood.
Beside
him,
the
so-called
Connecticut
VV'its
of
the late eighteenth
century
seem
to be lacking
half their
title. Compared
to
his
prose,
the tedious
sermonizing
of
the
Puritan
and Anglican ministers
seems like copybook work
in an understaffed grammar
school.
Not
that William Byrd
was
a
saint,
or
a
model
husband—
as he would have
been the first
to point
out.
But
as
with
the saints,
we
admire
him all the more
be-
cause
he
tells
us
about
his faults
and
lets
us
tabulate
the
virtues
for ourselves.
All
told,
we can
say
of
him
what
Abraham
Lincoln
supposedly
said
when
he
saw
Walt Whitman
far
down
the corridors
of
a
building:
There goes
a
man.
William
Byrd
of
^Vestover
would
have
settled
for
this.
Marshall
Fishwick,
professor
of
American
studies
at
IVash-
ington
and
Lee
University,
is
the
author
of
Virginia,
the
first
volume in
Harper's new Regions
of
America
series.
He
has
just
returned
from
a
Fulbright
lectureship
in
Denmark.
Statement
required
by the Act of August
24, 1912.
89
amended by
the
Acts
of March
3,
1933, and July
2.
1946 (Title
39,
United
States Code, Section
233)
showing
the
ownership,
management,
and
circulation
of
American Heritage, published
bimonthly
at
New
York. N. Y. for October
1. 19S9.
1.
The names and addresses
of
the
publisher,
editor
and
managing editor are: Publisher,
James Parton
Editor,
Bruce
Catton
;
Managing
Editor,
Oliver
Jen-
sen ; all of
551 Fifth Avenue,
New
York
17,
N.Y.
2. Tiic owner
is:
American Heritage Publishing
Co., Inc..
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17, N.
Y.;
stockholders owning
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of stock
: American
Association
for
State
and
Local
History,
Sturbridge,
Mass.;
The
Society
of American
Historians,
Inc., Princeton
Li-
brary. Princeton,
N.
J.;
Kichard V.
Benson;
Charles
Bruce Catton;
Irwin
Clusker;
Oliver
O.
Jensen;
Frank H.
Johnson;
James
Parton, individually
and
as Trustee under
Declaration
of
Trust
for James
Parton III,
dated
12/30/57, aa
Trustee
under
Declara-
tion
of
Trust
for
Dana
Parton, dated
12/30/57 and
as Trustee under
Declaration
of
Trust
for
Agnes
L.
Parton and
a Child
of the Grantor, dated
11/15/58;
Gerald
P. Rosen;
Joseph
J.
Thorndike,
Jr.,
individ-
ually
and
as Trustee under
Declaration
of Trust
for
John
Thorndike,
dated
12/27/57. as
Trustee
under
Declaration
of Trust
for
Alan
Thorudike,
dated
12/27/57,
and as Trustee
under
Declaration
of
Trust
for
Anna
Beardsley Lemont,
dated
9/15/58;
all
of
whose
addresses are
551
Fifth
Avenue. New
York
17, N. Y.;
.Alexander Hehmeyer, 575
Madison
. Avenue,
New
York
22,
N. Y. ;
E.
F.
Hutlon
&
Co.
for
Margery F. Sachs,
61 Broadway, New York
6,
N. Y.;
Arnold
H. Maremont,
1600 South
.Ashland
Avenue,
Chicago,
111.; A.
J.
Ostheimer HI, 1510
Chestnut
Street,
Philadelphia
2,
Pa.;
E.
Michele Phillips.
P.
O.
Box II, RowaytoD, Conn.; Roger
S.
Phillips,
P.
O.
Box
11,
Rowayton,
Conn.;
Cecily
Sachs,
c/o
Bankers
Trust
Co.,
P. O.
Box
704.
Church
St.
Station, New
York
8.
N. Y.; E.
J.
Stackpole,
220 Telegraph Building,
Harrisburg, Pa.; Barbara
Joan
Straus,
595
Madison Avenue,
New York
22.
N. Y.
3.
The known
bondholders, mortgagees,
and other
security
holders
owning
or
holding
1 percent or
more
of
total
amount
of bonds,
mortgages,
or
other
securities
are; None,
4. Paragraphs
2
and
3
include,
in cases
where the
stockholder or
security
holder appears upon
the
books
of
the company as
trustee
or
in
any other
fiduciary relation, the
name
of
the
person or corpo-
ration
for
whom
such
trustee
is
acting; also
the
statements
in
the
two
paragra)>hs show
the afliant'a
full
knowledge
and belief as
to the
circumstances
and conditions under which
stockholders and
security
holders who do not
appear
upon the books
of
the
company
as
trustees, hold stock
and securities
in
•
capacity
other than
that of
a
bona
fide
owner.
Signed,
James
Parton,
Publisher.
Sworn to and
subscribed before me this 20
day
of
August, 1959. [Seal]
Nathan Creenberg,
Notary
Pub-
lic
(My
commission
expires
March
30,
I960).
119
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for
King
(#
or
Congress
Hark,
Hark
the
trumpet sounds.
O'er seas
and
solid
grounds.
Who
for
king
George do
stand.
Their
ruin is at
hand.
The Acts
of
Parliament,
I
hate their curst
intent.
Who
non-resistance hold.
May
they
for
slaves be
sold,
The
Tories
of
the
day.
They
soon
shall
sneak
aivay.
The
Congress
of
the States,
Blessings
upon
them ivaits.
To
General
Washington,
May
numbers daily
run.
On
Mansfield,
North and
Bute,
Confusion
and
dispute.
To
North,
that
British
Lord,
I wish a
block
or
cord,
The din
of
war
alarms.
Do call
us
all
to
arms.
Their
honors
soon will
shine
Who
with
the
Congress
join.
In
them I
much
delight.
Who
for
the
Congress
fight.
They have
my
hand
and heart.
Who act a wiggish
part.
They
are
my
daily
toast.
Who
independence
boast.
I
hate
with
all
my heart.
Whoe'er
takes Britain's part.
Confusion
and
dishonor.
To
Britain's
royal
banner.
May
daily blessings
pour.
On
Congress evermore.
May
honors
still be
done.
To
General Washington.
The
American
Revolution
was
going
full tilt when, one
day
in
1779,
there
was a
commotion in
the New
York legislature at
Albany. Samuel
Dodge,
member
for Dutchess
County, was its cause.
He
had written
the
poem
above, and
a
copy had
gotten,
by
plan,
into
other hands.
A
mem-
ber
leapt to
his
feet to read
the verses
aloud
and
prove
the
d—nd
Tory
principles
of
the author.
Naturally
the
reader
had
read
from
left
to
right,
a
full line at
a
time, and the
House
groaned
and hissed. The
members
demanded to
know whether
Dodge
avowed
such
treasonable
views. Read
the
poem
again,
he
asked,
but
this
time read
it
differently
—not
straight
across but in
couplets,
first
from
the
left column,
then
the
right. On
hearing
the
same
words again,
the legislators
now
cheered
loudly. Thus,
dryly
concluded
a
long-ago
witness,
the instability
of
the
hearers
was
soon
perceivable.
—
Contributed
by
]ohn
Lowell
Pratt,
great-great-great-grandson
o^
Samuel
Dodge
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7/17/2019 American Heritage December
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/american-heritage-december 126/128
7/17/2019 American Heritage December
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/american-heritage-december 127/128
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